HACCU refuses to take into custody defence ministry official involved in embezzlement case
30 January 13:01
The High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine has dismissed the prosecutor’s motion to remand Oleksandr Liev, former head of the Department of Military Technical Policy, Development of Arms and Military Equipment of the Ministry of Defence, in custody, the
The Prosecutor General’s Office asked the court to impose custody on Liev with an alternative of bail of UAH 260 million.
Liev’s defence lawyers consider the suspicion unfounded and asked the court not to impose any preventive measure on their client. Liev himself assured the judges that he was not going to obstruct the investigation or leave his place of residence.
“I am ready to assist the investigation in the case in order to return the money to Ukraine as soon as possible and prevent such cases in the future. I am not going to leave anywhere,”
– liev said.
The court refused to grant the prosecutors’ motion. The detailed justification for this will be set out in the full text of the decision, which will be announced on 5 February at 16:55.
Oleksandr Liev was the acting head of the Ministry of Defence department from January 2022 to February 2023, when he was accused of having Russian citizenship and resigned of his own free will. on 27 January this year, the Security Service of Ukraine announced that it had exposed officials of the Ministry of Defence and the heads of the Lviv Arsenal plant in organising a scheme to embezzle funds from ammunition supply contracts worth UAH 1.5 billion. According to media reports, one of the defendants in the case is former Defence Ministry official Oleksandr Liev.