On Friday, June 12, 2020, Nikolay Ilyashenko, the first deputy head of the State Tax Service in Kyiv, was detained on the transfer of a $ 6 million bribe. Andrei Kicha, a lawyer and a former director of legal affairs at Burisma was also arrested.

The bribe was intended to go to the anti-corruption bodies (NABU, SAP) for closing a criminal case against the owner of the Burisma gas company Nikolai Zlochevsky.

The first deputy Ilyashenko acted as an intermediary, for which he was paid $ 1 million.

Money was accepted by the NABU freelance agent Evgeny Shevchenko, who is known to be involved in numerous NABU lawsuits. The handover took place in the parking lot of the traffic police headquarters in Kyiv.

The next day, June 13, 2020, the chairman of the State Tax Service, Alexey Lyubchenko, opened disciplinary proceedings and removed Nikolai Ilyashenko from his duties on the fact of violation of the oath of a public servant.

The media reported that in order to carry out the operation, SAP made amendments to the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations and allegedly closed the case against Zlochevsky. Ilyashenko, having previously checked this information, in turn, transferred the money to the intermediary - Shevchenko and was detained. Earlier, Ilyashenko introduced the “agent” Shevchenko to the ex-director of legal affairs at Burisma company, Andrey Kicha, who was looking for useful contacts with the leadership of SAP and NABU.

On June 14, 2020, the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court promptly put one of the defendants Andrei Kichu under arrested for 60 days, with the bail set in the amount of UAH 40.3 million.

In turn, the Burisma Group company denies any involvement in giving a bribe in an official statement:

“Neither the president of Burisma Group Nikolai Zlochevsky nor other employees of the company have anything to do with the voiced events. Nikolai Zlochevsky did not ask anyone to commit illegal actions and in no way contributed to such actions; nor does he have anything to do with the money that is being presented or have any expectations regarding birthday presents. Any mention of the Burisma Group and its owner is regarded by the company as a provocation, so the company turns to the media with a request not to manipulate unverified information. ”

Both Ilyashenko and his lawyer insist on house arrest, because, according to the materials of the criminal proceedings, it was established that he was in contact with the third person involved in the case (whose name is unknown), who allegedly had tested positive for coronavirus. There is a risk of infection, so house arrest will help to carry out 14 days of treatment and observation.

The court could not make a decision regarding Nikolai Ilyashenko yesterday and it appeared only this morning: the Higher Anti-Corruption Court took him into custody until August 10, 2020, with the alternative of making bail of UAH 84 million.

Andrey Pshenichny for the site dubinsky.pro