The Kherson City Court closed the criminal proceedings against the former Kherson city mayor, who was accused of official negligence that caused losses to the city budget. The proceedings were closed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for criminal liability.
This is stated in the ruling of the Kherson City Court.
As the investigation established, on December 3, 2018, the then Kherson city mayor approved an act of completed works regarding the implementation of an integrated information protection system for the “Register of the territorial community of Kherson”.
According to the court, for carrying out the works the mayor did not involve a specialized expert, but assigned these responsibilities to the head of the information and software support department of the Kherson City Council. According to MOST, this concerns Volodymyr Bukin. Moreover, the decision on responsibility was made orally, without proper control and verification of the contract’s fulfillment.
Despite the lack of confirmation of the actual implementation of the information protection system, the city mayor signed an act of service provision for the amount of 260 thousand hryvnias. This document served as the basis for transferring funds to the account of TOV «Мережеві системи Он-лайн».
According to the conclusion of the forensic economic examination, as a result of these actions the Kherson city budget suffered damages in the amount of 260 thousand hryvnias. The investigation then qualified this as official negligence.
There was no expert examination in the case, so all charges were based on the investigator’s assumption. It was not carried out later either.
On January 22 of this year, during the court hearing, the defense of the accused petitioned to close the case due to the expiration of the five-year statute of limitations. The court concluded that the limitation periods were neither interrupted nor suspended, therefore the accused was relieved of criminal liability.
Volodymyr Mykolayenko himself told MOST in a comment that he was present at the hearing and agreed to the closing of the case, although he considers himself innocent and was ready to prove it.
“At the judge’s question whether I understand that the case is being closed, I replied that I understand everything, and I would have been willing to continue proving my innocence. But you understand, it’s time. To attend hearings, to spend energy on it. And in the case they had not even carried out an expert examination and it is unknown whether they will, because so much time has passed and it is unknown whether the evidence and case materials were preserved after the de-occupation. Therefore I agreed to the closure of the case”, – he said.
It should be recalled that when the Kherson Regional Prosecutor’s Office sent an indictment to the court in this case, Bukin fully admitted his guilt. However, no one proved that he had any self-serving intent.