Court rules to remand agrarian minister in custody, setting UAH 75.7M bail

The High Anti-corruption Court decided to hold Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mykola Solskyi in custody, setting bail at UAH 75.7 million.

This was stated by the investigating judge, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"The motion shall be granted. A preventive measure shall be applied to Solskyi in the form of custody remand. Bail shall be set at 25,000 subsistence minimums for able-bodied persons, which is UAH 75,700,000. The term of validity of the ruling regarding the preventive measure is 60 days, until June 24, 2024, inclusive," the judge said.

If bail is posted, the minister shall be assigned a number of duties, including to report to a NABU detective, prosecutor, investigating judge, and court at each summons; not to leave Kyiv without the permission of the prosecutor or court; notify the investigator, prosecutor, and court about a change in the place of residence or work; and refrain from communicating with witnesses and other suspects in the case.

After depositing the bail, Solskyi shall hand over to authorities his passport for foreign travel and other IDs allowing him to cross out of Ukraine, and wear an electronic bracelet.

The prosecution's motion was granted in part as the Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office asked the court to arrest the minister and set a UAH 200 million bail.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, on April 23, the National Anti-corruption Bureau announced that the law enforcement had exposed the sitting minister for seizing state land worth UAH 291 million and attempting to seize land worth another UAH 190 million.

The head of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, Mykola Solskyi, commenting on the charges pressed against him, noted that the events relate to the period of 2017-2018, when he was a lawyer and was neither Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, nor Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Agrarian and Land Policy.

According to him, the seven-year-old case relate to a dispute between state-owned enterprises and individuals, in particular ATO fighters, over land plots given to the latter in possession in accordance with the law.

He stated that disputes are resolved by courts, including the Supreme Court, and that, as far as he knows, a number of rulings state that government-owned enterprises have no right to land, which is likely what NABU is referring to.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on April 25 received from Solskyi a resignation letter.