OREANDA-NEWS. The US Department of the Treasury has imposed sanctions on Andriy Portnov, a former deputy head of the administration and adviser to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, as part of the global "Magnitsky Act". This was reported on the agency's website. In addition to him, the restrictions were extended to the Andriy Portnov Foundation. Their assets in the USA have been blocked, as well as the country's citizens have been banned from carrying out transactions involving them.

The Finance Ministry believes that Portnov tried to influence the Ukrainian judiciary, appoint loyal officials to the courts, and also tried to influence the Constitutional Court and the Prosecutor-General of Ukraine.

The US State Department announced sanctions against the former head of the Ukrainian Constitutional Court (CC), Oleksandr Tupitskyy, "for serious corrupt practices, including taking monetary bribes while working in the Ukrainian judiciary". The restrictions were also extended to his wife Olha.

Last October, the State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine launched an investigation against Tupitskyy. He was suspected of involvement in a criminal organization, committing crimes as part of it and subsequently hiding them. Also, according to the bureau, the CC led by Tupitskyy influenced the work of economic courts, which issued "unlawful decisions in the interests of persons close to them to illegally alienate property assets".

At the same time, two criminal cases were launched against Tupitskyy under the articles of illegal alienation of land in Crimea and state treason.

The bureau believes that in July 2018, the judge unlawfully occupied a plot of land he had not been allotted under Ukrainian law. Tupitsky executed a deed by which he acknowledged the authority of Russian officials to make records of alienation of Ukrainian land and transfer it to Russian jurisdiction, investigators alleged.

"The Magnitsky Act is a law that allows for the imposition of personal sanctions against individuals who are responsible for violating the rule of law as well as human rights. The document is named after Hermitage Capital Management fund auditor Sergei Magnitsky, who investigated the embezzlement of funds from the Russian budget. He was accused by the authorities of setting up a scheme to evade taxes and was arrested. Magnitsky died in the Matrosskaya Tishina detention centre in Moscow in 2009.