Prosecutor General closed case against former Lviv RSA official accused of embezzling humanitarian aid

Prosecutor General closed case against former Lviv RSA official accused of embezzling humanitarian aid

The Prosecutor General’s Office has closed criminal proceedings against former Lviv Regional State Administration official Roman Matys, who was accused of embezzling humanitarian aid intended for the military.

"The Office of the Prosecutor General decided to close the criminal proceedings on suspicion of Matys due to the absence of corpus delicti," Roman Matys himself said on Monday, 19 February.

At the same time, he thanked Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin "for his political will" and a group of prosecutors led by Oleksiy Bonyuk for the work done "to objectively understand this situation".

Former Luhansk Regional State Administration official Roman Matys and editor-in-chief of the Mind.ua website Yevhen Shpytko were detained by the SSU in early May 2022. According to law enforcement, Roman Matys and Yevhen Shpytko made money by selling military equipment and other humanitarian aid intended for the military and embezzled money donated by benefactors for the needs of the army. They were detained while allegedly selling another batch of military equipment worth UAH 550,000. The court imposed on both defendants a custodial measure of restraint with the possibility of paying UAH 2 million bail each.

Roman Matys, 45, is the owner and director of the International Investment Office consulting agency. In 2016-2020, he headed the investment policy department of the Lviv Regional State Administration under the leadership of Oleh Synyutka.