The chair of Ukraine’s Supreme Court docket was faraway from his submit after being arrested in a bribery investigation, two anti-corruption our bodies stated on Tuesday.
The businesses didn’t establish the chair by title, however stated it was the Supreme Court docket chief. On Tuesday, Vsevolod Knyazev was dismissed as chief justice after an amazing majority of the court docket’s judges voted to strip him of the place, in response to native information experiences.
The authorities accused the justice of accepting $2.7 million in bribes.
“It is a darkish day within the historical past of the court docket,” the court docket’s judges stated in a joint assertion. “We have to be worthy and face up to such a blow.”
The judges added that they might totally cooperate with investigations, and that the court docket should “act on the precept of self-purification, taking all essential measures.”
Mr. Knyazev stays a Supreme Court docket decide; a separate physique, the Excessive Council of Justice, has the ability to take away him, in response to Ukrinform, a state information company.
The Nationwide Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine posted photographs on Fb that included piles of American {dollars} stacked on a desk and a settee. The company’s chief, Semen Kryvonos, stated a bribe was paid for ruling in favor of the Finance and Credit score monetary group, which is owned by a distinguished businessman, in response to Reuters.
The Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Workplace stated on Telegram that it and the bureau had “caught the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court docket and a lawyer red-handed whereas receiving an unlawful profit.”
Corruption, and Ukraine’s lengthy battle towards it, had principally receded within the public’s consideration after the Russian invasion final February, as Ukrainians rallied across the military and authorities at a time of nationwide peril.
However this 12 months, President Volodymyr Zelensky has retrained his concentrate on combating corruption, geared toward sustaining Ukrainians’ belief within the wartime authorities after a number of officers have been fired in January amid a significant corruption scandal.
And as Ukraine seeks fast-track entry to the European Union, the nation’s incapacity to suppress graft and corruption has involved its Western allies.
Anastasia Kuznietsova and Matt Surman contributed reporting.
