The Zavodskyi District Court of Mykolaiv refused the State Bureau of Investigation’s request to fine the head of the personnel department of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Kherson Oblast, Mykola Kucheryavyi, who is a suspect in the case concerning a scheme for selling driver’s licenses.
The corresponding court ruling was published on the website of the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.
Investigators asked to impose a fine because Kucheryavyi several times did not come to them to familiarize himself with the case materials. However, the court decided that reading the materials of the pre-trial investigation – is the suspect’s right, not his duty. Therefore, there are no grounds to punish him for non-appearance.
This concerns a criminal proceeding whose investigation has been ongoing since 2024. According to the investigation, the scheme consisted of helping to obtain services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs service centers in Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts: regional top officials, their relatives and acquaintances were helped to obtain driver’s licenses for money. The cost of such services depended on the complexity and on average amounted to 20,000 UAH per person.
The scheme was uncovered last summer. At that time, suspicions under Part 3 of Article 368 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine were announced to five people – the head of one of the State Emergency Service units in Kherson Oblast, an employee of a driving school, an official of a territorial service center and two law enforcement officers, one of whom was Mykola Kucheryavyi.
According to the State Bureau of Investigation, as part of the criminal group Kucheryavyi performed functions not as a police officer, but as a “advisor” to the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration Oleksandr Prokudin. However, he was never his advisor, but was sent to the RMA to guard Prokudin.
More about Kucheryavyi’s role and how he is actually connected to Prokudin, MOST reported via the link.