Odesa Mayor detained over embezzlement charges

Ukraine's High Anti-Corruption Court ordered a 60-day detention of Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov on May 4 and set bail at Hr 13 million (about $352,000), the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) reported.

According to the report, Trukhanov didn't pay the initial bail of Hr 31 million ($839,000) set by the court on April 25, followed by the SAPO appealing to the court for a change of the preventive measure from bail to detention with an alternative of bail.

The court has partially approved the appeal, and Trukhanov was reportedly taken into custody in the courtroom.

The Odesa mayor is accused of embezzling over Hr 92 million ($2.5 million) of budget funds while purchasing Odesa's Krayan factory building for the city government at an inflated price.

Odesa's Malinovsky District Court initially considered the case in 2018-2019, announcing the acquittal of Trukhanov and other defendants.

Then the SAPO filed an appeal to the High Anti-Corruption Court's Appeals Chamber, which canceled the acquittal and referred the case to the court for a new hearing.

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Kyiv IndependentOleksiy Sorokin