"I don’t believe in Kharkiv. We’ll be destroyed. Why do we need Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea?": how another "servant" was taken on a bribe
Another "Servant of the People" was taken on Tuesday on a bribe from NABU. Deputy Andrii Odarchenko offered Mustafa Naiiem, the head of the State Agency for Infrastructure Recovery and Development, an illegal benefit in the cryptocurrency Bitcoin in the amount of 50 thousand US dollars. United States.
In exchange for the money, the people's deputy asked for assistance in obtaining funds from the fund for the elimination of the consequences of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation for the repair of the university, where he worked before being elected as a deputy.
After the allocation of funds from the fund, the crypto wallet of the whistleblower-top official received the first tranche of illegal benefits in the equivalent of 10 thousand US dollars.
This is the first cryptocurrency-related illegal benefit ever documented by anti-corruption authorities.
On Wednesday, the High Anti-Corruption Court chose a measure of restraint for the deputy.
At the beginning of the meeting, prosecutor Olena Drobotova read an excerpt from Odarchenko's phone conversation with Naiiem.
In it, the deputy proposes to agree on the level of the kickback and that it is better to transfer it through crypto. Allegedly, cash is very dangerous.
"I love crypto. Have you ever used crypto? This is a f***ing nice topic. I have my own exchangers. Everywhere: in Lviv, Kharkiv, Kyiv. At least in Spain. They are there for 2%, but to their reliable people. And everything is gone," Drobotova read excerpts from Odarchenko's conversation with Naiiem.
The most interesting thing in this dialogue was not even how much money the deputy planned to receive and how much he wanted to divide, but also what circle of people he wanted to involve.
"Should we give money to the budget committee?" - Odarchenko asked Naiiem.
And then he continued to talk about the peculiarities of such arrangements, that he walks around at the meeting with a device that jams the recording.
- I'm afraid myself. I even go to Davyd with this broken record,- the prosecutor read out Odarchenko's words.
- Is Davyd also au fait? Naiiem asks.
"Davyd, he's a smart-#ss. I don't know myself. But I was told to stop this broken record. I myself am in the anti-corruption committee, I myself understand - if they get caught, then there will be no mood, no happiness, nothing," Odarchenko continued.
Then the deputy announced his intention to involve the regional customs and a member of the Committee on Education, also a "servant" of Yuliia Hryshyna, to "resolve the issue."
"I'm going to customs, tell me where. I am a member of the Anti-Corruption Committee. It used to be that everyone laughed, but now I'm fine with everyone... You just say the word, I'll involve Yulia Hryshyna. She's yelling there too," the deputy said.
One of the most decisive points of the conversations is that the deputy planned to take possession of from 15 to 20% of the amount and, in his opinion, "this should not arouse the interest of law enforcement officers."
In other words, the People`s Deputies have somehow gained the confidence that they can steal up to 20% and remain unpunished.
Also, in order to justify the detention, the prosecutor read one of the deputy's quotes about Kharkiv.
In a conversation with Naiiem, Odarchenko said that he did not believe that Kharkiv would stand and considered it necessary to negotiate with Russia: "It's a power, I read a lot, they will destroy us, Iran and China will give them weapons. Why do we need Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea? We need to come to an agreement."
In principle, what the prosecutor read out was enough to understand that the court did not have much choice in which measure of restraint to choose.
The lawyers had to pick on some clumsy arguments. For example, to demand that Mustafa Naiiem be summoned to court so that he can tell everything himself.
"Who is Naiiem? The decision is made by an interdepartmental commission. For what purpose would a bribe be given to Naiiem? There is no answer," the lawyer said in his speech.
"I can't read these files (cases. - Ed.), there are a lot of mistakes. A lot of obscene words," he added.
The defendant himself also denied that he had given a bribe.
"Yes, I have talked to Mustafa Naiiem many times on various topics. I did not voice any offers of illegal benefit. There was only communication about assistance, the allocation of funds to the State Biotechnological University," the deputy said during the court hearing.
According to him, the head of the State Agency for Infrastructure Restoration and Development, Mustafa Naiiem, asked him to teach him how to use crypto wallet. And he decided to help.
Moreover, the deputy said things that contradicted his own words.
"Mustafa asked me to teach him how to use crypto. I myself do not know how, I just recently bought a crypto wallet, which was seized from me. It's empty, there's zero, there's nothing. I didn't transfer any bitcoins to him, we (with Artem Chernetskyi) just set it up at the Hilton hotel, showed him how to use it," Odarchenko said.
But at the same time, Odarchenko said that he and Chernetskyi created a certain organization that dealt with cryptocurrency, and even received permission from the NACP (National Agency on Corruption Prevention).
"We are adults and we understand that if I call the head of any bodies, then no one will take any illegal actions, especially in such a situation as now," the People`s Deputy said.
It is interesting that most of all the deputy wanted to justify himself about Kharkiv and the fact that it could be lost.
"Maybe I meant campus, I don't know how I could say that," he said in his defense.
The lawyers, in order to somehow bring down the effect of the quotes, began to demand that the prosecutor provide audio confirmation of what she had read. And when Drobotova said that the files would be brought in three hours, they began to say that they needed to go to another meeting, and in general, they did not sleep at night.
The lawyers persistently asked to postpone the hearing to another day, but the judge refused.
Three hours later, the video of the conversations was delivered.
The prosecutor showed the same excerpts that she had read. The lawyers tried to argue that "you can see from his lips that he is saying the wrong thing".
But their arguments sounded like the excuses of a child.
In the end, the court decided to choose a measure of restraint in the form of detention with an alternative to bail in the amount of UAH 15 million.
Tetiana Nikolaienko, Censor.NET
