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A Ukrainian appeals court on Monday postponed a hearing in the case of a senior anti-corruption detective accused of involvement in the illegal cultivation and sale of hemp to Russia, OCCRP partner Slidstvo.info reported from the courtroom.
The case is politically charged and has sparked sharp criticism from activists because detective Ruslan Maghamedrasulov previously investigated a businessman close to President Volodymir Zelensky.
The Kyiv Court of Appeal delayed the proceedings against the detective with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), until Sept. 9. Maghamedrasulov, who has been jailed since July, denies the charges.
Prosecutors allege Maghamedrasulov acted as an intermediary in hemp sales from Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region to Russia’s Dagestan Republic, where his father allegedly maintained contacts with Russian citizens and occupation authorities in Donetsk. Cultivation and sale of technical hemp without a license is illegal in Ukraine, as is any trade with Russia under wartime law.
Maghamedrasulov’s arrest has raised concerns because of his past work investigating Tymur Mindich, a businessman and close associate of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
His detention came amid controversy over a law briefly curtailing the independence of NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, which Zelenskyy signed in July before parliament reversed it under public pressure.
Anti-corruption activists have called the case fabricated. Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Center for Countering Corruption, pointed to an audio recording released by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) in which Maghamedrasulov allegedly discussed sending a commercial proposal for hemp sales. He argued the SBU had misinterpreted the conversation, confusing Dagestan with Uzbekistan. The SBU rejected the claim, saying linguistic experts confirmed Dagestan was mentioned.
“SBU is deceiving the media with a linguistic semantic-textual examination that ‘established’ that the NABU officer is talking about ‘Dagestan’. This examination does not establish who is speaking (that is done by phonoscopic expertise),” Shabunin told Slidstvo.Info:
Monday’s hearing was marked by unusual scenes outside the courtroom. Journalists reported groups of young men in black clothing and others in military uniforms without insignia gathered at the courthouse. Some carried signs reading, “Traitors in the rear — burn in hell!”
