Case description
On September 20, 2022, the HACC acquitted former MP Dmytro Koliesnikov. He was accused of having two apartments in Kyiv and unreasonably filing a claim for compensation for the cost of a hotel room he used from 2014 to 2018.
Dmytro Kolшesnikov is a former head of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, former head of the Dnipro Regional State Administration, and MP of the Verkhovna Rada of the VIII convocation from the Opposition Bloc.
According to the investigation, from December 2014 to October 2018, Kolesnikov illegally received UAH 738,000 from the state budget as compensation for renting a room at the Kyiv Hotel. MPs who do not have their own housing in or near the capital are accommodated there. In fact, Koliesnikov had his own apartment in Kyiv. As the MP himself noted in court, in 2009–2010 he and his wife had two apartments in the capital, but then they separated, and Kolesnikov left the apartments to his wife “like a real man”.
Koliesnikov's actions were classified under Article 364, part 2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The HACC acquitted the former MP, but judge Nohachevskyiissued a dissenting opinion in which he noted that Koliesnikov should have been found guilty.
The appellate instance subsequently overturned this decision. The case is now being reconsidered in the first instance.
