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Judge faces new allegations as Ukraine tackles corruption

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KIEV: Ukraine is looking into new allegations against a prominent judge who recently returned from suspension imposed under a government drive to root out corruption.


Judge Artur Yemelianov was suspended for three months from January until April this year after state prosecutors opened a criminal investigation against him related to how commercial law cases were allocated to judges.


He is now back at work. But the investigation continues and prosecutors said they have launched an additional preliminary investigation into a previously unreported case in which Yemelianov awarded a property lease to a real estate company called Dreamwood.


At issue is whether his then wife, Svitlana Yemelianova, co-owned the company at the time Yemelianov made his ruling on October 9, 2008, which would have created an impermissible conflict of interests.


State registry documents issued just over a month later — on November 19, 2008 — show she was by that date an owner of Dreamwood. But Yemelianov says Yemelianova had no stake in the company when he made the ruling and denies any wrongdoing.


Reuters has not been able to independently establish whether Yemelianov or Yemelianova had any relationship with Dreamwood or its owners at the time of the ruling.


The new preliminary investigation, confirmed in a written statement to Reuters by the General Prosecutor’s office, is into Yemelianov’s ruling in a dispute over a piece land owned by the municipality in Svyatogirsk, a community about 160 km from the city of Donetsk.


Dreamwood applied for a lease on December 18, 2007, wanting to build a health spa with sports fields and watersport facilities. Court documents show the municipality declined to grant the lease, saying it could be acquired only in an auction — a procedure set out in a law approved by parliament at the end of 2007.


Dreamwood challenged the decision at the Donetsk commercial court, and Yemelianov presided over the case. He concluded there was no legal requirement for the lease to be awarded via auction in this case and ruled that Svyatogirsk municipality must grant a lease of 49 years and nine months to Dreamwood, the court records show.


In its statement to Reuters, the General Prosecutor’s office called the ruling a “patently unjust decision.”


It did not say what aspect of the ruling it took issue with but said a “legal assessment of Judge A Yemelianov’s actions” would be made when the preliminary investigation was completed.


Yemelianov denied there was a conflict of interest. — Reuters


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