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. The defendants managed to receive USD 10,000 as the first tranche and have already agreed to transfer the next amount of EUR 300,000 (over UAH 8.6 million).
The court charged the former officials with Article 368, part 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.
The appellate reconsideration of the case is ongoing.