Case description
On March 2, 2023, the HACC found Serhii Samiliak, the head of the Social Democratic Congress of Christians of Ukraine, guilty of attempting to bribe Kryvonos, the head of the SACI, for USD 120,000. Samiliak got a 5-year suspended sentence.
In December 2021, Serhii Samiliak, as an alleged representative of the Perfect Group development company, met with the acting director of the Department of Architectural and Construction Control (DACC) of the State Architectural and Construction Inspectorate (SACI) and told him that he wanted to bribe his “boss,” SACI head Semen Kryvonos, for issuing a certificate of commissioning of the Terracotta residential complex. At the same time, the amount of the bribe was announced: Samiliak offered to give Kryvonos USD 120,000 at the rate of “USD 2 per 1 square meter of the complex” (the total area of the residential complex is 60,000 square meters).
Kryvonos, the head of the SACI, was a corruption whistleblower in this case, and the investigation began in December 2021. He is currently the Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine.
During January 2022, at least two meetings were held with Samiliak, Kryvonos, and the acting director of the DACC of the SACI, during which the details of the bribe transfer process were discussed. In particular, it became known that the Terracotta residential complex could not actually be put into operation because there were no electricity meters and no transformer substation. Therefore, Samiliak offered a bribe and promised that, after receiving the document, the developer would fix the problems.
The money transfer took place in early February 2022 in the parking lot of a Kyiv supermarket. Immediately afterwards, at the same place, NABU detectives detained Serhii Samiliak and later served him with a suspicion notice.
The court charged Samiliak under Article 369, part 4 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and sentenced him to 5 years in prison. Samiliak agreed to a plea agreement with the SAPO prosecutor, so he got a suspended sentence with a 3-year probationary period.
Under the terms of the agreement, Samiliak also pledged to contribute USD 100,000 to the Army of Drones project for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
