On 26 November, the High Anti-Corruption Court reviewed two video recordings of searches conducted at the residence of former President and judge of the Supreme Court Vsevolod Kniaziev. During the hearing, only Kniaziev addressed the court, while his lawyers and the prosecutor will have the opportunity to respond to his statements at subsequent hearings. 

Kniaziev is accused of receiving a bribe of USD 1.8 million in exchange for securing a ruling by the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court in a case concerning a share sales and purchase agreement involving Ferrexpo Poltava Mining, owned by companies whose beneficiary is Kostiantyn Zhevaho. 

According to the investigation, Kniaziev, together with a notary and his close friend Kyrylo Horburov and lawyer Oleh Horetskyi, organised the ‘scheme’. Horburov later became an agent of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and recorded, inter alia, the transfer of funds.

Horetskyi entered into a plea agreement with the investigation: the court found him guilty of aiding and abetting the crime and sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment without confiscation of property, but released him from serving the sentence subject to a three-year probation period.

The case against Kniaziev has been under consideration by the High Anti-Corruption Court since March 2024. 

Opening of the safe 

In the first video reviewed during the hearing, filmed during a search of Kniaziev’s office at the Supreme Court, law enforcement officers can be seen removing cash from a safe. According to Kniaziev, the safe opened by investigators had two doors: the outer door was opened with a key, while the inner door required a PIN code. 

In the video of the search, a NABU detective can be heard saying:

‘We do not have the keys to the inner section’.

The investigators then move to another room and a NABU detective returns saying: ‘That’s it, we finally have the keys’.

The defendant questioned where the investigators obtained the key, suggesting they may have had it long before the search. At the same time, his lawyer Oleksandr Hotin was unable to explain to Watchers where he believed law enforcement officers had obtained the key. 

To open the PIN-protected door, NABU detectives asked Kniaziev to provide the code. He replied that he only knew how to enter it visually. The bureau’s officers then showed him a photograph of the safe door so that he could identify the code.

During the examination of another segment of the search footage, explosions can be heard, as Kyiv was being shelled by russian forces that day. Kniaziev stood up from his chair, went into the corridor, began getting dressed and asked law enforcement officers to move to a shelter. The investigators refused. Kniaziev submitted to the court a certificate from the Kyiv Digital service confirming that an air raid alert was indeed in effect at the time of the search. 

‘However, the NABU detective, despite references to Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention [on Human Rights] [Article 2 provides for the right to life, Article 3 prohibits torture], which are clearly not applicable here, stated that the Criminal Procedure Code does not provide for this’, Kniaziev said. 

Court hearing in the case of Vsevolod Kniaziev. Photo: Watchers archive

Bag

Next, during the hearing, the court examined the protocol for the inspection of physical evidence dated 30 May 2023, including photographs of a bag which, according to the investigation, NABU agent Kyrylo Horburov brought to Kniaziev’s residence with an illicit benefit on 15 May of the same year. 

The defendant noted that the number of the evidence bag containing a brown leather men’s bag differed from the number of the evidence bag indicated in the protocol. 

Kniaziev also drew attention to the visual appearance of the bag shown in the search videos compared with the photographs in the protocol. According to him, the bag in the protocol appeared darker, smaller and made of perforated leather, whereas in the video the material of the bag looked smooth.

Presiding judge Serhii Moisak: ‘Well, looking at your fragment, it seems to me that they are identical. I don’t know, to me it also looks perforated in your photo. The lower part here is just as smooth. I can’t comment on the size because there’s no ruler, as there usually is’.

Kniaziev responded: ‘It seems smaller to me. I showed you the video, and here you can see that it is smooth’.

The judge: ‘Well, in the photograph it could also appear larger (…) This edge cord, do you see it, in your photo and here… There is such a chain’.

Kniaziev: ‘But the structure of the leather clearly does not match. Let’s watch the video again and see that it is smooth and glossy, whereas this one is matte and perforated’.

However, the court did not re-watch the video allegedly showing the bag containing the illicit benefit. 

Earlier, in a comment to Watchers, the defendant said that after Horburov left his apartment, a NABU detective entered with what appeared to be the same bag, which was later found to contain cash. Kniaziev suggested that this indicated that ‘at least part of the material in this case was fabricated’. 

Previously, in a comment to Watchers, Prosecutor of the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office Vitalii Hrechyshkin denied the statements made by Kniaziev and his defence, which have been repeatedly voiced during the trial.

‘NABU detectives, just like prosecutors of the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, act strictly within the law and do not commit such disgraceful acts. There is absolutely no planting of any evidence. As for the defence’s speculations — planted or not planted… Let us be objective. We are talking about enormous sums of money. Such sums unquestionably have an origin. It is highly unlikely that anyone would simply scatter such enormous amounts of money’, the prosecutor added. 

Prosecutor of the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office Vitalii Hrechyshkin. Photo: Watchers archive

Kniaziev also pointed out that the prosecutor had not added to the case file the protocol dated 17 May 2023 concerning the inspection of a mobile phone. According to the defendant, the numbers of the evidence bags for the phone also differ between the protocol and the inspection video. 

The judge asked the prosecutor whether this protocol was important. Hrechyshkin replied that it was important for potential future confiscation of property, as the phone contains photographs of ownership documents.

Kniaziev stated that the apartment is listed in his declaration and that he personally provided the phone password to NABU officers, but that other information could have been added to the device. 

‘I probably provided the password to this phone to NABU executives the day after an agreement was reached that personal materials would not be published online (…) And after it [the phone] was unsealed, some changes could have been made to it, provided the password was available’, Kniaziev suggested. 

The judge asked whether there were photographs of apartment ownership documents on the phone, to which Kniaziev replied that he did not know. 

‘If you look at that phone, about ten devices belonging to various family members and relatives are connected to it. We have a shared photo stream. This can easily be checked on the phone, it’s not a problem, we all understand how it works (…) And you will see that it was not me who took the photographs and not my phone. I do not check the photo stream every day to see which of these relatives is photographing what. Therefore, I cannot say whether I took photos or not’, the defendant said. 

The hearing will continue on 12 December.