The Collegium of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) has sentenced of former judge of the Dniprovskiy District Court of Kyiv, Mykola Chaus, to ten years in prison with seizure of property and deprivation of the right to hold certain positions for a period of three years, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) of Ukraine reports on Wednesday.

The verdict can be appealed within 30 days to the HACC Appeal Chamber.

In turn, the Anti-Corruption Action Centre recalls that in 2016, NABU detectives exposed a judge for receiving a $150,000 bribe. According to the prosecutor's office, Chaus hid the bribe "in a businesslike way" in jars. Chaus buried one of them under the fence of his wife's land, and left the other in a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado car, registered to his mother. Chaus allegedly received the money for delivering the "necessary" verdict in the interests of defendant Svitlana Sasevych.

Chaus himself insisted that he did not take a $150,000 bribe, it was a loan for the construction of a house.

After the investigation began, Chaus managed to leave Ukraine. In November 2016, the judge was put on the international wanted list. Subsequently, he was found in Moldova, where he asked for political asylum. In April 2021, Chaus's lawyers stated that their client had been kidnapped, but a few months later he suddenly appeared in a village in Vinnytsia region.

The case has been heard at the HACC since November 2021. At first, Chaus was under house arrest, then the judges set a bail of UAH 717,900, which his wife made.