The HACC acquitted two SBI officials, Yehor Riadinskyi and Oleksandr Buhai. They were charged with attempting to set up a prosecutor by offering him a bribe in exchange for the decision they wanted.

According to the prosecution, in August 2021 Riadinskyi and Buhai made contact with a person they planned to use as an intermediary. They offered him a job and arranged for him to come to Kyiv, including transferring money for the trip. During subsequent meetings in Kyiv, they allegedly recruited him to cooperate and offered to have him assist in operational and investigative activity.

As the prosecution claimed, the defendants conceived a provocation of bribery as soon as they learned that the intermediary was acquainted with the deputy head of a prosecutor's office. The plan was to offer money for help in lifting the seizure of a land plot belonging to a certain Dmytro Buriak, and then to expose the official.

On the instructions of Riadinskyi and Buhai, the intermediary held a series of meetings with the deputy head of a prosecutor's office in Lviv. He offered to resolve the matter of the asset seizure for a monetary reward. The official, however, declined the offer and reported these proposals to his superiors.

Even after the refusal, the defendants did not stop. Riadinskyi and Buhai, with Buriak's assistance, the investigation believes, continued to insist on the money being handed over and found a third person to subsequently pass it to the prosecutor as a bribe. The total sum offered to the prosecutor was around $5,000 in various currencies.

The defendants' actions were therefore classified under Article 370(2) and Article 369-2(1) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

In the end, the HACC acquitted Buhai and Riadinskyi. In the court's view, the prosecution was based on provocation of the offense, which automatically rendered all the evidence obtained in the case inadmissible.

In addition, the court noted that, even leaving aside the provocation, the prosecution had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants' actions contained the elements of the offense set out in the article on provocation of bribery. As for the trading in influence, the court found that the relevant event had formally taken place, but that it too was a consequence of the provocation, which precludes criminal liability.

The proceedings against Dmytro Buriak have been suspended, as he is performing military service.