Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies reported an attempted bribe of $3.5 million – one of the highest known cases to be uncovered – to influence the court’s ruling.
The largest known bribe attempt discovered in Ukraine – about $5 million – was uncovered during the 2020 Burisma case, which drew international attention over alleged links to then-US President Joe Biden, who was later cleared of any wrongdoing due to a lack of evidence.
In the latest case, Ukraine’s Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) reported on Thursday that an unidentified person attempted to bribe SAPO prosecutors and judges from the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) “for the adoption of a corresponding decision.”
SAPO did not disclose to which active case the bribe is connected but wrote that, along with detectives from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), they established that lawyers representing the unnamed suspect worked with a corrupt prosecutor from the Prosecutor General’s Office to offer the bribe.
They suggested the suspect should offer the bribe to close the case.
“As part of the pre-trial investigation, it was established that the lawyers, having entered into a criminal conspiracy with the prosecutor of the Prosecutor General’s Office, suggested to the suspect in one of the NABU cases to resolve the issue of closing the case by bribing officials of the SAPO and the HACC,” SAPO’s Thursday press release says.
The bribe was said to have risen from $2 million to $3.5 million as the lawyers and prosecutor reportedly worked as the middlemen for the deal.
According to SAPO, the lawyers and the prosecutor had already received $200,000 from the deal when the crime was discovered.
SAPO is the prosecuting arm for corruption cases that works independently under the Prosecutor General’s Office, with the two having experienced friction in the government’s recent failed attempt to place SAPO directly under the purview of the Prosecutor General.
Kyiv Post previously covered the function of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies and how the ecosystem is designed.