The Appeals Chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court upheld the sentence for former head of the State Fiscal Service Roman Nasirov, rejecting most of the defense’s appeals.
This is reported by Finway
Details of the Court’s Decision
On April 2, the court partially granted the defense’s appeal, excluding references to the testimony of former tax official Lyudmyla Solotva from the sentence, as well as recalculating the period of pre-trial detention that counts towards the total sentence. At the same time, the seizure of assets remains in effect until the final consideration of the civil lawsuit by the company “Ukrgazvydobuvannya.”
“In other respects, the appeals of Roman Nasirov’s and Volodymyr Novikov’s defense were dismissed, and the sentence was left unchanged. Thus, the sentence of the High Anti-Corruption Court, which sentenced Nasirov to 6 years of imprisonment with a fine of 17,000 UAH and disqualified him from holding public office for 3 years, while Novikov was acquitted, has come into legal force.”
Essence of the Case and Positions of the Parties
During the proceedings, Volodymyr Novikov requested a change in the wording of the sentence in which he was acquitted, while Roman Nasirov emphasized the lack of evidence of his guilt and claimed that the only truth in the case is his innocence.
The former head of the State Fiscal Service and the head of the department were accused of abusing their official position, leading to severe consequences (part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). According to the prosecution, in 2015-2016, Nasirov, acting in the interests of a member of the VIII convocation of parliament, personally approved a number of decisions regarding the deferral of tax debts and obligations for the companies “Firm ‘Has’, ‘Karpatnadrainvest’, ‘Nadra Geocenter’.” According to the investigation, these decisions were unfounded, illegal, and led to the non-receipt of over 2 billion UAH to the state budget. However, Nasirov and his defense categorically deny these accusations.
In addition to this case, Roman Nasirov has another criminal proceeding against him. In October 2022, NABU detectives informed him of suspicion of receiving a bribe in a particularly large amount and aiding this crime through his advisor. The investigation is ongoing.