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One more minister of Ukraine’s former cabinet gets jail term

Georgy Filipchuk, has been sentenced to three years in jail for an abuse of his occupational powers while in the ministerial office

KIEV, April 5 (Itar-Tass) – Former Minister of Environment Protection in the cabinet of the now jailed Yulia Timoshenko, Georgy Filipchuk, has been sentenced to three years in jail for an abuse of his occupational powers while in the ministerial office.

A sentence to him was issued by the Solomensky district court in Kiev.

“The court has recognized Filipchuk’s guilt and has sentenced him to three years in jail,” the former minister’s lawyer Nikolai Shupenya told reporters. “He was detained right in the courtroom and escorted to a custody center.”

According to Shupenya, Filipchuk is accused of an abuse of occupational powers in the process of signing an agreement with the law firm Astapov Lawyers, under which the Ministry of Environment Protection received consultations during the hearings of an international lawsuit over the cancelling of an agreement between the Ukrainian government and the company Vanco International Ltd. on developing mineral resource deposits on the Black Sea shelf.

The bar presented quite a sufficient amount of evidence showing that Filipchuk had acted strictly within the boundaries of legislation as part of fulfilling the instructions of the cabinet of ministers and, in particular, Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, Shupenya said.

A criminal case against Filipchuk was instituted at the end of 2010.

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