June 19, 2025, 6:06 p.m.
(Photo: Natalia Dovbysh/Intent)
Judge of the Kyiv District Court of Odesa Dmytro Tyshka imposed house arrest as a measure of restraint on Iryna Kutsenko, a city councilor from the "Trust the Deeds" party suspected of embezzling funds for fictitious "rehabilitation" of drug addicts.
According to the Center for Public Investigations, during the consideration of the preventive measure, the prosecutor asked to keep the MP in custody for 60 days during the investigation with the possibility of bail for UAH 2.3 million.
The defense attorney, in turn, cited the cases of Mamedova v. Russia and Tymoshenko v. Ukraine as precedents. <span>In the first case, the suspect complained that she had been held in unbearable conditions from July 2004 to July 2005, with her preventive measure being extended all the time. </span>In the second case, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko complained about her unlawful imprisonment.
She also asked that she should not be held in custody as she feared that she would be tortured.
During the hearing, Judge Tyshko was interested in the fact that the day after receiving the suspicion, Iryna Kutsenko donated housing and property to her young children. To which the MP replied that it happened that way.
"We were preparing for two weeks. I didn't know that I would be served with a suspicion on June 16," she said.
When asked by the judge why Kutsenko, if she considers herself not guilty of violating the law, was asking for house arrest instead of lifting the preventive measure, she replied that she wanted the court to establish her innocence.
After hearing the parties, the judge chose a measure of restraint in the form of house arrest with the possibility of bail of 2.3 million hryvnias.
On June 16, officers of the Bureau of Economic Security served a notice of suspicion to Iryna Kutsenko, a member of the Odesa City Council, in a case of corruption at the Center for Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS. Details of the investigation, the list of people who have also been notified of suspicion and what exactly the deputy and others are suspected of will be announced later.
Intent asked the MP for a comment on this situation, but did not receive a response.
As reported by Iryna Hryb in December 2024, the Center allegedly entered into agreements with a controlled individual entrepreneur to use budget funds. Allegedly for the rehabilitation of drug addicts who did not actually exist in the amount of more than UAH 7 million. And allegedly for this, MPs and officials received kickbacks of 15% from entrepreneurs.
It should be noted that back in December, the Center for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control told Intent 's editor that they were not aware of any searches.
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