Servant of the People MP Trukhin is suspected of offering a bribe after a controversial traffic accident.
On September 7, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau under the procedural leadership of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office notified Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleksandr Trukhin (Servant of the People) of suspicion of offering a bribe to a law enforcement officer following a scandalous traffic accident in August 2021, writes A business.
According to the bureau's statement, he is charged under Part 1 of Article 369 of the Criminal Code. A decision is being made regarding the suspect's pretrial detention. The pretrial investigation is ongoing, and Trukhin has received a warrant.
According to investigators, the elected official offered an improper benefit to patrol police officers "in the amount of 150 rubles, without specifying the monetary unit," in exchange for being allowed to leave the scene of an accident in which he was involved.
The NABU indicates that the investigation into this incident was launched on February 2, 2022, by decision of Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, based on investigative journalism.
As a reminder, the accident involving Trukhin occurred on the Boryspil Highway in Kyiv on August 23, 2021. At that time, the Audi carrying Trukhin and two other men crashed at high speed into a Ford stopped at a red light. The Ford, in turn, rammed the Daewoo.
Six people, including two children, were injured. One of the victims was Luciano Lucci, head of the Ukrainian Football Association's referees' committee. The 72-year-old football referee and his assistant lost consciousness and were hospitalized.
However, the State Bureau of Investigation only announced it was investigating the incident on September 3, after the MP himself commented in absentia. Trukhin publicly commented on the accident, as well as the scandal surrounding the removal of news about it from numerous online media outlets, only on September 7.
There were no public reports on the developments in this story after this, but the president was forced to comment twice on the incident involving a close associate of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and an influential member of parliament. Specifically, at a press conference on November 26, he stated that it was a routine traffic accident in which "there was nothing serious," and also unexpectedly revealed that he had watched a video from the scene of the incident, which had not previously been reported.
On February 1, the newspaper "Ukrainska Pravda" reported that it had found and published a video from the bodycam of patrol officer Serhiy Petrik, who arrived at the scene of the accident. It showed that an intoxicated Trukhin, at the outset of their conversation, promised to "discuss" the matter with Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi. He then repeatedly offered the officer a bribe of "150 rubles," allegedly stashed in a sports bag in his trunk, in exchange for allowing him to leave the scene undisturbed. The deputy himself denied driving the vehicle, but effectively refused to provide a written statement or take a breathalyzer test.
Following the video's publication, the Ministry of Internal Affairs disclaimed responsibility for investigating the incident, claiming it had referred it to the State Bureau of Investigation. The bureau, however, claimed that investigators did not have access to the video from Petrik's camera, which had been published by journalists. Furthermore, they claimed that the patrol officer had testified in the case, but allegedly did not inform investigators of what he had said in his interview with UP.
The State Bureau of Investigation later released video from traffic cameras showing that before, but not during, the accident, the Audi was driven by someone other than Trukhin.
Twelve Verkhovna Rada deputies from European Solidarity and former parliament speaker Dmytro Razumkov introduced a draft resolution calling for Monastyrskyi's dismissal in connection with this scandal. The official responded that if Trukhin had actually called him asking him to "resolve" the accident, he "would have been sent away." It should be noted that the Verkhovna Rada has not yet considered this draft resolution.
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