Judge of Chernihiv's Desniansky district court Natalia Liamzina has ruled to take Deputy Minister for Temporary Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons Yuriy Hrymchak into custody, setting bail at UAH 6 million ($237,154). The Ukrainian prosecutor's office in its petition requested to take the deputy minister into custody with an alternative of a UAH 12.5 million (US$493,681) bail. At the same time, Hrymchak said in a courtroom he did not have money for such a bail, an UNIAN correspondent reports.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Hrymchak and his assistant were detained on Wednesday, August 14, on bribery charges. The two officials allegedly demanded US$1.1 million from a representative of a legal entity for "exercising influence on decision-making by persons authorized to perform state functions." Hrymchak and his assistance were caught red-handed amid receiving part of the sum in the amount of US$480,000, the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) said.
On August 15, Hrymchak and his assistant were notified of suspicion under Part 4 of Article 190 "Fraud Committed on an Especially Large Scale or by an Organized Group" of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. "The individuals by deception took possession of other people's property – money in a particularly large amount," the NABU added. The crime under the said article is punishable by imprisonment for a term from five to 12 years with confiscation of property.