The High Anti-Corruption Court placed People's Deputy Serhiy Kuzminykh under round-the-clock house arrest
The High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine (HACC) has imposed a preventive measure on Serhiy Kuzminykh, a member of parliament from the “Servant of the People” party, who is suspected of bribery by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).
The court ordered the MP to be placed under round-the-clock house arrest with an electronic ankle monitor for a period of two months, with no right to appeal the court’s decision.
Law enforcement officials detained the incumbent lawmaker in compliance with the court’s ruling due to his systematic failure to appear at court hearings over the past four years.
The criminal case concerns fraud involving the procurement of medical equipment for hospitals in the Zhytomyr region.
In January 2022, law enforcement officials caught the lawmaker “red-handed” while he was receiving a bribe of 558 thousand hryvnias.
According to the investigation, Kuzminykh received the funds through a trusted intermediary in exchange for helping a private company win a tender.
This amount represented 30% of the contract value for the supply of an ultrasound diagnostic system, concluded between a municipal enterprise—a hospital in Zhytomyr—and a private company.
Detectives from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) determined that the suspect had planned to carry out illegal activities on a much larger scale.
According to the NABU, the deputy guaranteed that in the future, in exchange for a “30% kickback,” he would use his influence to secure funding and the implementation of two additional contracts — for the supply of a magnetic resonance imaging system and laparoscopic equipment — totaling more than 38 million hryvnias.
During the court hearing, prosecutors insisted on imposing a significantly stricter preventive measure on the MP.
The prosecutor from the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) asked the court to impose a pretrial measure on Kuzminykh in the form of pretrial detention without the option of bail.
The prosecutor also noted that Kuzminykh is deliberately delaying the case by failing to appear in court in order to allow the statute of limitations to expire.
The defendant justified some of his absences by citing business trips abroad that coincided with the scheduled court hearings.
This was reported by a Suspilne correspondent from the courtroom.
NABU detained MP Kuzminykh after several years of failing to appear in court
Millions in wealth from habitual debtors: how MP Kuzminykh’s inner circle legalizes assets hidden from the National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NAZK)
