Today, on June 25, the HACC was supposed to start the session appointing an interim measure for Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Chernyshov, a suspect in a corruption case related to the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories. However, the session was rescheduled to Friday, June 27.
On June 26, Chernyshov filed a motion asking to postpone the session as he has to be at meetings of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Government. He posted that information on his Facebook page.
The case itself and the fact of suspicion of an high-rank official caused a significant public outcry. This is evidenced in particular by the fact that many media representatives came to today's court session, which was eventually postponed.
Oleksii Chernyshov is the former Minister for Development of Communities and Territories and a sitting Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for National Unity. The NABU-SAPO suspects him of abuse of office and obtaining illegal benefits in the case of corruption in the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories.
According to investigators, developer Serhii Kopystyra, together with top officials of the Ministry, implemented a scheme to illegally acquire land in Kyiv for a residential development. For this purpose, Kopystyra allegedly involved the then minister Oleksii Chernyshov, who was supposed to help the controlled state-owned enterprise transfer the land to a construction company, and give the state the part of the built apartments in return. To reduce that share, the value of the land was artificially reduced nearly fivefold, which may have caused over UAH 1 billion in losses to the state.