The decision of the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv on transferring to another pretrial investigation body the case of an attempt to bribe the leadership of anti-corruption bodies in order to close criminal proceedings on suspicion of the former Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources will be appealed in the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC), the press service of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) said.

"The decision was challenged in the Chamber of Appeals of the High Anti-Corruption Court on December 29, 2020, and in accordance with the information posted on the portal of the judiciary, the case is scheduled for appeal on December 30, 2020," the SAPO wrote on Facebook.

According to the SAPO, the lawyer of the suspect filed two complaints, similar in content, against the actions of the prosecutor regarding the failure to consider the application for resolving the dispute on jurisdiction, both at the Pechersky District Court.

The first complaint was returned by the ruling of the investigating judge on December 2, 2020. The consideration of the second was repeatedly postponed, and as a result, on December 24, 2020, without the participation of the prosecutor, the investigating judge decided to satisfy the complaint and oblige to consider the dispute on jurisdiction, transferring the criminal proceedings to another body of pretrial investigation.

"The court refused to provide a short or full text of the ruling despite the repeated written requests of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. This ruling is not included in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions," the SAPO said.

At the same time, a representative of the court said that the materials of the case, as of December 30, 2020, had already been sent to Kyiv Court of Appeal, and the requested ruling was issued on December 29, 2020 to the representative of the Prosecutor General's Office (not the prosecutor of the SAPO), who arrived for it. The SAPO said that prosecutors of the Prosecutor General's Office are not involved in this criminal proceeding and thus cannot take part in them.

"Taking into account the above mentioned, there is an interest of individual lawyers, suspects and the court to implement the scheme already worked out in other high-profile cases for the illegal transfer of criminal proceedings attributed to the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine to other law enforcement agencies," the SAPO said.

It is also noted that the pretrial investigation in the proceeding was completed on December 1, 2020.