The chairman of a village council in the Vitebsk region has become a defendant in a criminal case on illegal land allocation

August 19, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA/. A criminal case has been initiated regarding the illegal allocation of land plots against the chairman of one of the village councils of the Vitebsk region, the Department for Combating Economic Crimes of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee informed a BELTA correspondent today.

The official signed a decision of the village council to allocate two land plots with a total value of over Br40 million for lifelong inheritable ownership to two citizens, despite the fact that legislation defines a different procedure for allocating land plots. As the investigation believes, his actions were motivated by personal interest.

The actions of the chairman of the village council fall under Part 3 of Article 426 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus "Abuse of power or official position," which provides for punishment in the form of imprisonment for up to 10 years.

Since the beginning of the year, over 200 criminal cases have been initiated based on materials from the economic crimes unit for corruption offenses. A significant number of these include official forgery, embezzlement through abuse of official position, and bribery. The largest number of corruption offenses are detected in public administration bodies, trade, agriculture, construction, transport, and commercial organizations.-0-