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Kyiv's Shevchenkivsky district court ruled that Editor-in-chief of the online newspaper Strana.ua Ihor Huzhva, an extortion suspect, must be remanded in custody for 60 days, but the judge also granted UAH 544,000 (US$20,899) bail, according to an UNIAN correspondent.
Prosecutor of the department of prosecutor's office of Kyiv Olena Kovalchuk insisted on selecting custody as a preventive measure for Huzhva with the possibility to be released on bail worth 1,000 minimum wages (over UAH 3 million, or $115,252).
As UNIAN reported earlier, Huzhva was detained on Thursday evening, June 22, after a police raid in the Strana.ua editorial office. In the cases, the police initiated criminal proceedings under Article 189 (extortion) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Read alsoStrana.ua editor-in-chief Huzhva facing up to 10 years in prison, seizure of propertyAccording to the law enforcers, Huzhva, along with his accomplice Anton Fylypkovsky, demanded $20,000 from MP (Radical Party) Dmytro Linko. Huzhva was detained after he had received half the amount, $10,000.
On June 24, the court chose a preventive measure for Fylypkovsky, placing him under round-the-clock house arrest.
Huzhva called the charges against him as fabricated ones, saying that the government wants to abolish the online newspaper Strana.ua. and put him in prison.