While Oleksiy Azarov has been under investigation over massive embezzlement of state funds for months, it turned out that the son of former prime minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov has faced no charges as of yet.
The former lawmaker, whose father fled the country with Viktor Yanukovych after the EuroMaidan Revolution, was put on the EU sanctions list in spring.
The Azarov case is yet another demonstration of Ukraine dragging behind in prosecuting its own former rulers, while the western countries have taken action on them and expect Ukraine to do the same.
In response to a recent inquiry of Serhiy Leshchenko, lawmaker and former journalist who investigated Azarov’s family assets in Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said that it is currently checking the involvement of Oleksiy Azarov in criminal offense and hasn’t yet notified him of suspicion or arrested his property in Ukraine.
“It means that European Union will drop sanctions against him. And it means that he can continue robbing the country and remain unpunished,” Leshchenko wrote on Facebook on Jan. 5 after publishing the response.
Oleksiy Azarov is one of the 22 former officials and allies of deposed president Viktor Yanukovych, who have been banned from travelling to the EU countries and had their assets frozen by the EU after they were accused in Ukraine of “embezzlement of state funds and their illegal transfer outside Ukraine.” His bank accounts in Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Liechtenstein were frozen following the criminal proceeding launched against him over embezzlement of 7,700,000 euro, 600,000 Swiss francs and $500,000.
In December, the Wall Street Journal reported that 14 of them have challenged the sanctions in the European Court raising the issue of possible revision of sanctions by the European Union аs by the end of October 2014, more than seven months after the sanctions were imposed, no charges were filed in Ukraine against half of them.
Since December, however, some progress has been made. While EU sanctions remain in place, as of now, almost everyone from the list is declared a suspect in Ukraine (in many cases over the issue of embezzlement of state funds) but not everyone, as Vitaliy Kasko, deputy prosecutor general, told the Kyiv Post. He refused to give the names.
Vitaliy Shabunin, chair of the board of Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center said the recent actions of Prosecutor’s Office prevented the EU from unfreezing the assets of Ukrainian officials. However, a few people from the list might still have sanctions dropped against them, he said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected].
