Case description
On February 15, 2023, the HACC found Pavlo Zubov, former head of a village council in the Kyiv region, and Oleksandr Shalamai, former member of the same village council, guilty of extorting EUR 300,000 and receiving USD 10,000 in bribes from local entrepreneurs.
In 2016, representatives of a local agricultural enterprise, Hvozdiv-Agro LLC, wanted to lease 26 hectares of land for a long-term lease with the right to buy it, and Zubov, the former head of the Hvozdiv village council, and Shalamai, his accomplice, began to extort money from them.
According to the investigation, during a meeting with the founders of Hvozdiv-Agro LLC, Zubov and Shalamai demanded a USD 500,000 bribe in exchange for securing a village council decision to lease to Hvozdiv-Agro the land plot on which the company’s property complex was located.
At first, Shalamai received part of the bribe — USD 10,000 — from a representative of the LLC. At the next meeting, the officials again approached representatives of Hvozdiv-Agro LLC with a request to transfer the remaining part of the bribe, changing the currency and the amount to EUR 470,000.
Later, the defendants ensured the adoption of a village council decision granting Hvozdiv-Agro LLC consent to develop land management documentation for leasing the specified land plots. Two more meetings took place at the village council, during which the officials suggested “disguising” the transfer of money as a loan to Shalamai for the construction of a cottage town. The amount of the unlawful benefit was reduced to EUR 300,000. To conceal the scheme, Shalamai wrote a receipt for allegedly receiving the money as a loan. The transfer of funds was to take place in a car on the way to a neighboring village.
The defendants did not plead guilty. During questioning, Zubov stated that he considered the investigative materials to be falsified and explained his actions by saying he wanted to protect himself from the victims’ alleged attempts to remove from office the head of the village. Shalamai called the case a provocation, claiming that the victims acted through an intermediary, allegedly intended to formalize the land plot, but in fact had no such intention, and emphasized that he and Zubov were merely offering kind assistance.
The court charged the former officials with Article 368(4) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. They were sentenced to 9 years in prison with a ban on holding certain positions: Zubov for 3 years and Shalamai for 2 years. Half of the defendants' property was also confiscated.
However, the HACC found the accusation of extortion of unlawful benefit unsubstantiated. The prosecutor then filed an appeal. The HACC Appeals Chamber upheld the prosecutor’s appeal and confirmed the previous sentence. The Supreme Court left the decision unchanged.
