Former Head of the Constitutional Court Tupytskyi and law enforcement officers who smuggled him abroad are served suspicion notices - Prosecutor General’s Office
Prosecutors of the Prosecutor General's Office exposed an organized group that included the deputy head of a district police department in Zakarpattia region and officers of the State Border Guard Service. They were illegally transporting people across the border.
This was reported by Censor.NET with reference to the press centre of the Prosecutor General's Office.
The members of the organized group were notified of suspicion of illegal transportation of persons across the state border of Ukraine (Part 3 of Article 332 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
Among the persons who used the illegal service is the former Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.
What did the investigation find?
According to the investigation, the organized group illegally transported Ukrainian citizens through certain border checkpoints in Berehove district of Zakarpattia region without undergoing mandatory border control.
The police officer, in accordance with his role, informed the persons trying to illegally leave Ukraine about the way to cross the border and coordinated the actions of the drivers involved in the transportation.
"The law enforcement officer personally traveled to the area of the border crossing point, accompanying the illegal border crossing, including at night.
In turn, the border guards did not conduct border control in relation to the persons illegally transported across the state border of Ukraine," the statement said.
Also, within the framework of this criminal proceeding, the former Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine was served a notice of suspicion of illegal transportation of persons across the state border of Ukraine in complicity with members of this organized group (Part 2 of Article 332 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
The investigation is ongoing, and other possible accomplices in the crimes from among law enforcement officers are being identified.
As a reminder, on December 29, 2020, Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree to remove the head of the Constitutional Court, Oleksandr Tupytskyi, from the position of a CCU judge for a period of two months. In turn, the CCU press service said at the time that this decree contradicted the Constitution. Subsequently, Zelenskyy extended the suspension of the CCU head for another month, and then canceled Viktor Yanukovych's 2013 decree appointing Oleksandr Tupytskyi as a judge of the Constitutional Court. However, the Supreme Court declared this decree illegal, and the appeal against this decision is ongoing.
As a result, Tupytskyi's term of office expired on May 15, 2022, and only after that Oksana Hryshchuk, who was appointed by Zelenskyy's decree to replace Tupytskyi, took the oath of office.
Prior to his suspension, the acting Prosecutor General informed Tupytskyi that he was suspected of corruption. According to the investigation, in 2018, while holding the position of deputy head of the CCU, acting in the personal interests and interests of the former head of the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine, Viktor Tatkov, he influenced a witness in a criminal proceeding by bribing him to refuse to testify or give deliberately false testimony.
In addition, three times during 2018-2019, Tupytskyi provided the investigator of the Special Investigations Department of the Prosecutor General's Office with deliberately false testimony, combined with the artificial creation of defense evidence, regarding a particularly serious crime related to the illegal seizure of property assets of PJSC "Zuevskyi Energy and Mechanical Plant".
