The Court of Appeal handed down an actual custodial sentence to a 36-year-old Lviv resident for a flat burglary, overturning the previous suspended sentence. This was reported by the Halytskyi District Prosecutor’s Office of the city of Lviv.
It was established that in March 2024 the man, having forced open plastic balcony doors, entered a flat in Lviv. From the property he stole a tablet, a games console, a set of tools, a tactical rucksack, a power bank and a watch.
According to the investigation, the total amount of material damage is almost UAH 20,000. The man was found guilty of theft committed under martial law pursuant to Part 4 Article 185 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The Lviv resident had previously been brought to criminal liability on multiple occasions. In 2018 he was convicted of theft of property worth more than UAH 13,000. While serving his sentence at the Lviv penal institution and later in one of the correctional colonies, he was found to be illegally in possession of methadone for his own use. In total, he has spent more than 10 years in places of detention, but just two years after his last release he again committed a property offence.
The court of first instance sentenced the man to 5 years’ imprisonment, but released him from serving the sentence on probation. Prosecutors appealed the verdict, pointing out that, given his previous convictions and the repeated commission of an offence shortly after release, it was impossible to rehabilitate the convicted person without isolating him from society.
The Court of Appeal agreed with the arguments of the prosecution, quashed the verdict in the part concerning the sentence imposed and passed a new one – 5 years of actual imprisonment.