A Kyiv man stole a wallet from a shopper at Silpo. Here's what the court decided regarding the incident.

A man entered the Silpo store and noticed a stranger. He pulled a wallet with cash from the stranger's jeans pocket. This is mentioned in the decision of the Darnitsky District Court of Kyiv, published on April 10, 2024.

On February 28, 2023, the man saw a stranger in the "Silpo" store, who was standing by the lockers and putting money into his wallet. He followed him and took a wallet from the stranger's jeans pocket, which contained about 1,500 hryvnias and 40 euros (according to the official NBU exchange rate, that amounts to 1,620 hryvnias). During the court hearing, the accused did not admit his guilt regarding the alleged criminal offense outlined in the indictment and explained that he did not commit any theft or robbery. When he was detained, he was told to confess to the theft, assuring him that he would not be charged with drug trafficking, thus he claimed that he spoke under pressure during the investigative experiment.

What punishment did the court impose?

The court found the man guilty of committing a criminal offense under part 4 of Article 186 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. He was sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment.

"Thus, the court, having fully and comprehensively examined the criminal proceedings, analyzed and evaluated each piece of evidence in terms of relevance, admissibility, and reliability, and assessed the totality of the collected evidence regarding sufficiency and interconnection, including verifying and evaluating the defendant's claims of innocence, believes that the factual circumstances in the criminal proceedings were established in the manner prescribed by criminal procedural law, and the guilt of the defendant in committing the alleged criminal offense under part 4 of Article 186 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine is proven and qualifies his actions under part 4 of Article 186 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine as open theft of someone else's property, committed repeatedly and under conditions of martial law," the court emphasized.