On 10 February, the second preparatory hearing was held at the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) in the case involving Trukhanov and his associates. They are charged under provisions concerning the creation of a criminal organisation (Article 255 of the Criminal Code), misappropriation and embezzlement of property (Part 1 of Article 191), money laundering (Part 3 of Article 209), and abuse of office (Part 2 of Article 364). Thus, when the proceedings reach the reading of the indictment, we should hear a description of the joint actions of Trukhanov and his associates and how roles were distributed between his direct subordinates and Halanternyk’s people.
The charges concern events from 2016–2019, when the Odesa territorial community lost at least six land plots with a total area of 15.9 hectares and a value of UAH 131 million.
According to the investigation’s version, represented by NABU detectives, representatives of local authorities and law-enforcement agencies in Odesa received money, apartments in new buildings and other financial benefits in exchange for decisions favouring the criminal organisation. According to an expert assessment, the total damage caused by these episodes amounts to UAH 689 million.
The shadow office of Odesa ‘master’ Halanternyk and his managers
Negotiations and schemes were developed in the shadow office of Odesa ‘master’ Halanternyk, in a specially soundproofed room at the Babel Fish restaurant, while participants in the dealings were subjected to polygraph tests.
So far, during the preparatory hearings, the defendants have filed numerous motions, requested that the case be heard by a panel of judges, and asked for it to be combined with another case involving former regional prosecutor Zhuchenko, who, according to the investigation, facilitated the offenders’ unlawful actions and received compensation. In particular, Zhuchenko sometimes allegedly received compensation in the form of real estate in buildings that were constructed unlawfully on municipal land. To date, Zhuchenko is the only person who speaks in court personally, on his own behalf; the others speak through their defence lawyers.
This is not the only case before the HACC in which Trukhanov and his associates are accused of misappropriating municipal land. We also plan to follow an episode in which the current deputy mayor Vuhelman is among the defendants, as well as a separate case involving everyone except Trukhanov, including Halanternyk’s childhood friend Vasyl Shkriabai, the former chair of the council commission on municipal property and a current regional council deputy; Popovska, the current head of the legal department; and Halanternyk’s lawyer and the ‘brain centre’ of all these schemes, Diamid Zhonnyk. Trukhanov, Shkriabai and another Halanternyk proxy, Rodionov, are physically present in the courtroom of the Odesa District Administrative Court, in the videoconference room, while the other defendants connect separately, including former land-management commission chair Oleh Bryndak.
As for Halanternyk himself, it was stated at the previous hearing that his last known location was Austria. We hope NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors have taken past mistakes into account and will be able to prove the alleged joint criminal actions, and that Trukhanov and company will not be acquitted for a second time, now by the High Anti-Corruption Court. We note that 500 witnesses have been named in the case against Trukhanov and the alleged criminal group, so the proceedings are likely to take more than one year, because the HACC is a new institution that may struggle with such a workload. In the Krayan case, which the HACC is hearing again after all defendants were acquitted by Odesa’s Malynovskyi District Court, the preparatory hearings lasted two years!
According to the lawyer, Bryndak’s actions were lawful
Lawyer Andrii Leshchenko, well known in the human-rights community and representing former deputy mayor Oleh Bryndak in the proceedings, stated in an interview after his client was served with a notice of suspicion thatthe accusations were ‘absurd’. According to the lawyer, Bryndak’s actions were lawful and beneficial to the city, and the plots did not disappear as part of recreational land but remained accessible to the community. We note that although we have not yet heard the indictment and do not know which specific actions are alleged to constitute deliberate organised acts of legalising (laundering) community property, this composition of defendants has appeared before.
Thus, the lawyer speaks as an ally of his client and shifts the assessment of the actions into a subjective plane. Was the ‘reconstruction’ of part of a protected natural area in Arcadia theft before Halanternyk appropriated it and turned it into a private commercial site with hotels and boutiques? Some people may regard this appearance of Odesa’s key waterfront as acceptable or even aesthetically pleasing, but does a subjective assessment negate the fact of unlawful appropriation of a protected natural area? We would also like to draw attention to another episode, in which city officials bought an old airfield near a cemetery at a price ten times higher than the market price. Does the fact that this area is on the outskirts of the city, in what is described as a ‘depressed’ part near an existing cemetery, make these actions any less unlawful or outrageous?
Given the specifics of Article 255, when an organised criminal group operates, each participant is aware of the others’ involvement, acts in coordination, and each individual and official performs their role at the level available to them. This is what we should see in the evidence that will eventually be presented in court and in witness testimony.
We also note that Trukhanov appears to have no other choice but to run for mayor again in order to avoid criminal liability, which is why it is extremely important to follow all episodes involving members of his team.