On April 9, 2025, Roman Nasirov, the former head of the State Fiscal Service, failed to appear at the HACC hearing. The defense mentioned that Nasirov was conscripted into the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the mobilization campaign, and therefore cannot appear before the court. He did so voluntarily. Based on this, the defense filed a motion to suspend the proceedings.
The prosecutor objected to the suspension, stating that Nasirov needs to be summoned to court first, and that he can also participate in the hearings online.
The court postponed consideration of this issue to gather sufficient information. The next session is scheduled for April 11.
Nasirov's case is already at the stage of court debates and is close to a verdict being issued. The prosecutor has already delivered her closing argument, and another defendant, Novikov, has begun his speech. It was now time for Nasirov and his defense attorneys to take the floor, followed by the final statements from the defendants, after which the judges would retire to their chambers.
In May of last year, parliament allowed convicts to be exempted from serving their sentences in exchange for contract military service, except in top corruption cases. This demonstrates the legislative approach to preventing the «evasion» of punishment for top corruption in exchange for military service. Earlier, we addressed this issue in our recent HACC monitoring report.