High Anti-Corruption Court announces 10-year prison sentence for corrupt ex-judge Chaus
Law enforcement officers caught him with a bribe back in 2016, but Mykola Chaus managed to escape to Moldova. Now, the court has found him guilty of taking a bribe in a particularly large amount.
This is evidenced by a statement from the HACC.
Former judge of the Dnipro District Court Mykola Chaus is known for a number of scandalous decisions. For example, during the Revolution of Dignity, in February 2014, he deprived a member of the Automaidan protest movement of his driving licence, according to lawyer Roman Maselko. Prosecutors argued that on December 29, 2013, the defendant allegedly exceeded the speed limit when driving to the residence of then-President Viktor Yanukovych in Mezhyhiria to attend a protest. In fact, the Automaidan activist did not drive at all that day.
In 2016, Judge Chaus cancelled the international wanted list for Yurii Ivaniushchenko, a crime lord, and Yanukovych associate. Since then, Ivaniushchenko, known by his criminal nickname Yenakiievskyi, has been living in Monaco.
As a result, detectives from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau began to monitor Chaus's activities. In 2016, they found a jar of money buried in the judge's land plot. The jar contained an $80,000 bribe. The second jar was in the judge's car. He kept another $70,000 there. For this money, the judge was supposed to reduce the sentence of a woman accused of selling drugs.
However, in the autumn of 2016, Mykola Chaus managed to escape to Moldova, where he remained in hiding until 2021.
Ukrainian and Moldovan investigative journalists from Slidstvo.info and Rise.md claimed that in the spring of 2021, Ukrainian intelligence officers kidnapped the judge from Moldova.
In July 2021, under unclear circumstances, Judge Chaus ended up in the village of Mazurivka, Vinnytsia region, in Ukraine. Mykola Chaus was wearing almost no clothes and claimed he had been kidnapped. He was then detained by the Security Service of Ukraine.
The High Anti-Corruption Court has been hearing Chaus' case since August 2021. On June 14, 2023, the HACC announced a sentence of 10 years in prison, confiscation of all property, and barring from holding positions in the judiciary.
"There may still be an appeal ahead, but despite the lengthy trial, the verdict is yet another proof that the anti-corruption system is working," the Anti-Corruption Action Centre NGO said in a statement regarding the case.
