On May 21, the Appeals Chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court rejected the request to cancel the arrest with the possibility of bail for the former head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Ermak, suspected of laundering 460 million hryvnia. The meeting was broadcast on YouTube.
The judge upheld the VAKS decision of May 14 on arrest for 60 days with the possibility of posting a bail of 140 million hryvnia. Ermak was also ordered to wear an electronic monitoring device, surrender his passports and not communicate with other defendants in his case. Lawyer Igor Fomin argued that the suspicion did not indicate the grounds for choosing a preventive measure related to restriction of freedom.
Ermak, in his address to the court, stated that there was no evidence in the case, and also confirmed that he was wearing a “bracelet” and had submitted documents to travel abroad.
He noted that the amount of bail funds collected into the VAKS account reached 150 million. At the same time, Ermak did not deposit personal funds, since he did not have the physical ability to do so – after the decision was announced, he was sent to a pre-trial detention center.
The representative of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, in turn, assessed the suspicion as fully substantiated, and the amount of the bail of 140 million as insufficient, recalling that the SAPO asked to determine the bail in the amount of 180 million hryvnia.
