Sergii Leshchenko, a lawmaker with the Bloc of President Petro Poroshenko, on Nov. 26 published a letter from Swiss authorities to Ukrainian prosecutors that could add weight to bribery accusations against Mykola Martynenko, an ally of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
Swiss prosecutors are investigating Martynenko on suspicion of accepting 30 million Swiss francs from Czech engineering firm Skoda JS for giving it a contract to supply equipment to state-owned nuclear power firm Energoatom.
In the letter, Swiss Vice Prosecutor Urs Koehli asks Ukraine’s General Prosecutor Viktor Shokin for assistance in collecting additional evidence on Martynenko. It’s not clear what, if any, assistance Ukrainian prosecutors have provided.
Martynenko has denied any wrongdoing and faces no criminal investigation on the matter in Ukraine.
“As far as the documents published by Leshchenko are concerned, there is no confirmation of their authenticity, and it’s not clear in what way they were acquired,” Martynenko said in comments e-mailed to the Kyiv Post. “That’s why I can neither refute nor confirm them.”
When contacted by the Kyiv Post, the Swiss attorney general’s spokeswoman Linda von Burg said that they do not comment “on possible case documents in public.”
Skoda JS, part of Russian engineering group OMZ, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The Martynenko scandal comes amid mounting criticism of the Prosecutor General’s Office for its failure to investigate the corruption of both incumbent and former government officials.
Vladyslav Kutsenko, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, told the Kyiv Post that prosecutors would “act in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code if (Leshchenko’s) documents confirm any violation.”
A member of Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front Party, Martynenko is a six-term lawmaker and has headed parliament’s fuel and energy committee since 2006.
He is reported to wield great influence at Energoatom, and its president Yury Nedashkovsky is a protégé of Martynenko, according to Leshchenko. Nedashkovsky headed Energoatom in 2000-2003, 2005-2006, and 2008-2012. Most recently, he has been its president since March 2014.
The alleged bribe for the Energoatom contract is suspected to have been given in the form of commission fees paid to Bradcrest Investment, a Panamanian company ultimately owned by Martynenko, according to Swiss prosecutors.
Leshchenko published documents provided by French bank BNP Paribas and Swiss bank Banque Hottinger & Cie to Swiss prosecutors showing that Martynenko is the beneficiary owner of Bradcrest Investment, which had accounts with the banks.
Martynenko denied being the end-owner of Bradcrest Investment in comments sent to the Kyiv Post.
Under a contract signed in 2008, Bradcrest Investment promoted Skoda’s sales and services on the Ukrainian market, according to a March 31 request for assistance in the Martynenko case sent by Koehli.
Bradcrest received a 15-percent to 20-percent commission fee from Skoda. Skoda paid €3.6 million in commission fees to Bradcrest Investment’s account with BNP Paribas, and €2.8 million to Bradcrest Investment’s account with Banque Hottinger & Cie in 2011-2012, the Swiss prosecutorial letter stated.
Martynenko faces a prison term of “more than three years” if convicted, according to the request. He was interrogated on Oct. 28, 2013 about the bribery accusations, Koehli’s said in the letter.
Martynenko denied being called for questioning by the Swiss authorities, saying he had voluntarily provided information to Swiss prosecutors of his own accord. “Over the past three years, neither charges nor notices of suspicion have been filed against me in Switzerland,” Martynenko said. “But Mr. Leshchenko has assumed the function of a prosecutor and is accusing me directly. The presumption of innocence is meaningless to him, let alone complying with the law.”
He said an alleged smear campaign against him had been initiated in 2012, when he was in opposition to then-President Viktor Yanukovych.
Leshchenko wrote in his blog on Nov. 26 that Martynenko “keeps lying to society that there is no criminal case in Switzerland and about his innocence, and keeps heading parliament’s energy committee, which he used to get kickbacks from Skoda.”
“This story casts a shadow on the People’s Front, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and the whole post-EuroMaidan government,” Leshchenko wrote. “And Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who has direct links to the president, is continuing his sabotage and refusing to open a criminal case against Martynenko in Ukraine.”
Leshchenko also said he had given copies of the documents to Yatsenyuk.
“Now Yatsenyuk can’t pretend that he doesn’t know anything,” he wrote. “By covering up for Martynenko, he will become his accomplice.”
Yatsenyuk previously has said that what Martynenko is accused of took place before he became prime minister in 2014 and that his political party colleague denied the charges.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].
