The president of Ukraine’s Supreme Court was removed from his post after being arrested in a bribery investigation, two anti-corruption bodies said on Tuesday.
The agencies did not identify the chair by name but said it was the head of the Supreme Court. According to local news reports, Vsevolod Knyazev was dismissed as chief justice on Tuesday after an overwhelming majority vote of the court’s judges.
Officials accused Justice of accepting $2.7 million in kickbacks.
“This is a dark day in the history of the court,” the court’s justices said in a joint statement. “We must be worthy and face such setbacks.”
The judges said they would cooperate fully with the investigation, and that the court “should act on the principle of self-purification by taking all necessary measures.”
Mr. Knyazev remains a judge of the Supreme Court; A separate body, the High Council of Justice, has the power to remove him, according to ukrainformA state news agency.
Posted by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine photos on facebook Including stacks of US dollars on a table and a sofa. The head of the agency, Semen Krivonos, said the bribes were paid to sway the verdict in favor of the Finance and Credit financial group, which is owned by a prominent businessman. according to reuters,
The special anti-corruption prosecutor’s office said in a telegram that it and the bureau had “caught the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and a lawyer red-handed receiving illegal benefits.”
Corruption, and Ukraine’s long struggle against it, came to public attention mostly after the Russian invasion last February, as Ukrainians rallied around the military and government during a time of national crisis.
But this year, President Volodymyr Zelensky has begun to refocus his attention on fighting corruption, with the aim of maintaining the trust of Ukrainians post war government Several officials were sacked in January amid a major corruption scandal,
And as Ukraine seeks speedy entry into the European Union, the country’s inability to crack down on corruption and graft has worried its Western allies.
Anastasia Kuznitsova And Matt Surman Contributed reporting.