Court to rule on pretrial restraint for Poroshenko on Jan 19

"They decided to announce a judgment on Epiphany, January 19. Tried to arrest me but something went wrong," Poroshenko told his supporters after leaving the court on January 17, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

The court ruling was being waited for more than five hours since the judge went to the deliberations room.

During the hearing, a prosecutor asked the court to take Poroshenko into custody with the possibility to post a UAH 1 billion bail.

The prosecutor also asked the court to oblige Poroshenko to hand over his passports to an investigator, not to leave his place of residence, and to come to the investigator at the first call if the bail is paid.

Commenting on the amount of bail, the prosecutor noted that a sum of UAH 3 billion was mentioned in the case files and Poroshenko was able to post the requested bail as he had declared USD 50 million and UAH 420 million in income for 2021.

At the same time, the lawyers argued that Poroshenko did not acquire the status of a suspect because the notice of charges was served improperly. The lawyers also asked the court to return the pretrial restraint request to the prosecutor as it was void in their opinion.

As reported, Acting Prosecutor General Oleksiy Symonenko signed a notice of charges for Poroshenko over coal supplies from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine on December 20, 2021.

Subsequently, the Prosecutor General’s Office approved the request to impose a pretrial restraint in the form of custody with the possibility of posting a UAH 1 billion bail. The officers of the State Bureau of Investigation and the Security Service of Ukraine investigate a criminal case on organizing a criminal scheme of coal supplies from the temporarily occupied territories and financing the terrorist organizations "LPR" and "DPR" totaling about UAH 1.5 billion by a group of Ukrainian citizens. Proceedings are carried out under Part 1 and Part 3 of Art. 258-5 (financing terrorism), Part 1 of Art. 111 (treason) and Part 1 of Art. 258-3 (aiding terrorist organization) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

In September-November 2021, MP Viktor Medvedchuk, former energy minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn, and businessman Serhiy Kuziara were served notices of charges within the case. The prosecutor's office requested the court to take Medvedchuk in custody with the possibility of posting UAH 1 billion bail.

The court put Medvedchuk on round-the-clock house arrest. Kuziara was taken into custody. He stayed in a pre-trial detention center until January this year, when the court changed his pretrial restraint to round-the-clock house arrest. Former minister Demchyshyn is currently on the international wanted list.

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