The ex-head of the Supreme Court now owes the state more than 900 thousand UAH
Recently, the former Chairman of the Supreme Court Vsevolod Knyazev had his property and accounts seized. And this arrest was not carried out as part of the sensational NABU case of a bribe of almost $3 million - it concerned a completely different story.
Knyazev’s property was seized due to the fact that in another case the judge could not confiscate 906 thousand UAH, which he underpaid for renting an apartment in the capital Pechersk. And this is a special apartment, because according to the agreement, Knyazev paid only 1000 (!) hryvnia for it every month.
Where Knyazev found such an apartment, what property was seized from him, and how it is connected with that very case of $2.7 million in bribes - we will look into it further.
How did Knyazev “burn” the rent of a four-room apartment on Lipki?
In May 2023, detectives came to Knyazev’s home and convicted him of large-scale corruption in the Supreme Court. According to NABU and SAP, Knyazev received UAH 2.7 million in bribes for “correct” court decisions in favor of oligarch Konstantin Zhevago.
During the search, they found not only piles of cash, but also an apartment rental agreement, which immediately attracted the attention of law enforcement officers. The fact is that since 2017, Vsevolod Knyazev has been renting a 4-room apartment with an area of 133 square meters in the capital. m on Lipki, not far from the government quarter, and paid a symbolic thousand hryvnia for it.
The NACP drew up a protocol on the fact of this agreement, and then the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv examined the case. He found that Knyazev had thus violated the restrictions on receiving gifts. In fact, this is due to corruption, for which the ex-head of the Supreme Court was fined 2,550 UAH with confiscation of the gift.
As a gift, the court qualified the difference between the minimum market value of the apartment, which could range from 51 to 57 thousand UAH per month, and the actual rent paid for a certain time that the ex-head of the Supreme Court lived there. Accordingly, Knyazev retained UAH 906,600, that is, he received these funds as a gift from the landlord.
“The apartment is not new, and the contract is not the same” - Knyazev’s arguments
Knyazev noted in court that the rental price was not 1,000 UAH, but 1,100 US dollars. This, according to the former head of the Supreme Court, was stipulated in a separate agreement, which NABU detectives did not find. They say that this price corresponded to the market price according to his examination, because “the apartment was not new, it was an old housing stock, renovations had not been done for 30 years.” Knyazev “worked all the time, so this was not of fundamental importance to him.”
And the found agreement allegedly concerned the rental of a parking space. Why did they include an apartment for a thousand hryvnia in the contract? Knyazev’s lawyer explained that the owner did not have documents for the parking space.
The court was critical of these arguments, because the former head of the Supreme Court never indicated in the declaration or during the search either another agreement or a parking space as a rental object. The owner of the apartment actually only had ownership rights to the garage at a different address, and this was registered by a private notary, who turned out to be the wife of Knyazev himself. When NAPC asked why the lease agreement was concluded at a price of 1000 UAH, Knyazev replied that it was concluded on terms acceptable to both parties.
Moreover, the defense attorney argued that the rental of housing by Knyazev as an individual did not create corruption risks in the performance of his work functions. True, neither these nor other arguments of the defense convinced the judge, and on December 26, 2023, the court made the already mentioned decision to confiscate the gift of 906 thousand UAH.
Unsuccessful confiscation - where did the money go?
The defense filed an appeal and received a response in March 2024. The Kiev Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the first instance, because even receiving a minor gift with violations is enough to qualify it as an administrative offense. If we talk about the possible influence on Knyazev’s actions as the former head of the Supreme Court, then this amounts to a criminal article.
In parallel with the legal red tape regarding the lease, in January 2024 Knyazev was given bail in a bribery case - and the ex-head of the Supreme Court was released from the pre-trial detention center.
But there was not enough money to implement the appeal decision. It is worth noting that before posting bail, Knyazev waited more than six months until its amount was reduced from the original 107 million UAH to 18 million. We cannot say whether 900 thousand remained in the judge’s account after that.
What property was seized?
However, the State Executive Service of the Ministry of Justice (GIS) did not wait for Knyazev to transfer funds in pursuance of the court decision and seized his property and bank accounts. Deputy Minister for Executive Service Andrei Gaichenko noted: if there is no money in the accounts of the ex-head of the Supreme Court, then GIS will recover the possible property discovered on him.
The GIS report talks about four real estate properties in Nikolaev and the region registered to the former chairman of the Supreme Court, but it appears that not all of this property belongs to Knyazev alone. Thus, on April 26, the court divided the property between Knyazev and his ex-wife Yulia, who filed for divorce after the bribery scheme was exposed in the Supreme Court. The ex-wife was left with ownership of a residential building, $52 thousand in cash and funds in a number of bank accounts.
Why is this Knyazev case also important?
In general, illegal gifts did not often cause such problems for those who received them. The standard fine for violating legal restrictions regarding the receipt of gifts, regardless of their value and not taking into account confiscation, is a maximum of only 3,400 UAH. And the payment of such funds was hardly a problem for other officials in respect of whom the corresponding decisions were made.
TI Ukraine previously talked about the format and the total value of gifts allowed by law, which for 2023 amounted to UAH 10,736. If you go beyond the limit, then the above-mentioned fine will be applied to the official.
At the same time, a special story happened with Knyazev. Such a large confiscation of a gift of 906 thousand UAH, applied by the court, is perhaps the largest confiscation that has become known to the public. And in general, such a decision is an important precedent.
The publicity of this case may encourage unscrupulous officials to consider whether it would be better to refuse a valuable gift in order to avoid such a large confiscation. And this, in turn, will contribute to the real prevention of violations related to corruption.
And the very fact that we learned about such a violation during the investigation of another, larger case, and this has already led to real punishment, for its part also refutes the theses about the total ineffectiveness of anti-corruption bodies. Because if there weren’t one, there wouldn’t be another. And I think we will see similar stories again.
