A publicity-shy influential member of parliament with agricultural business interests has hired a team of lawyers to polish his image.
Yuriy Ivaniushchenko, a publicity-shy lawmaker from the pro-presidential Party of Regions, is following the lead of billionaire Rinat Akhmetov and others by using lawyers and litigation to protect his reputation.
After repeated claims in Ukrainian media that he had a dodgy and even criminal past, his lawyers called a press conference on April 28 to announce they had filed two lawsuits for defamation against unnamed publications.
The lawsuits ask the court to recognize that the information is false, to order a retraction and the removal of the offending information from the websites.
The purpose of such defamation, they said, was “preventing Ivaniushchenko’s active part in setting up clear rules of play on several markets that are critical for the country.”
In a recent interview, Ivaniushchenko claimed to be a long-time acquaintance of President Viktor Yanukovych and Agrarian Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk. Ivaniushchenko is a native of Yenakiyeve, Yanukovych’s hometown in Donetsk Oblast.
Diplomats in Kyiv, grain traders and media reports have also linked him to Khlib Investbud, a previously obscure grain-trading company that won a large share of grain-export quotas from government.
Despite numerous speculation, Khlib Investbud is, first and foremost, a state company with a mission that’s perfectly clear to me – trying to establish clear rules of play on the market.
– Yuriy Ivaniushchenko
Many agriculture market participants said the government heavily favored the trader by handing out a large allocation of export quotas to this company. In addition, Ukraine’s government selected Khlib Investbud as the single agent supplying grain to the national grain reserve.
On April 28, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Mykola Azarov promised to find out whether Ivaniushchenko has any connections to the company. Earlier he and Prysyazhnyuk denied knowing who the private majority owners of the company were.
Ivaniushchenko recently broke his silence surrounding his alleged involvement with Khlib Investbud. Responding to Kyiv Post interview questions, he said it was not “his” company, but he expressed support for the work it’s doing in Ukraine.
“Despite numerous speculation, Khlib Investbud is, first and foremost, a state company with a mission that’s perfectly clear to me – trying to establish clear rules of play on the market,” Ivaniushchenko told the Kyiv Post.
But Ivaniushchenko’s lawyers didn’t want to talk about his businesses.
His adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said his legal team is prepared to go all the way to European courts to “clean up” their client’s reputation and ban certain “cliches” about Ivaniushchenko from being mentioned in the press.
The main “cliches” circulated by media that worry Ivaniushchenko and his lawyers are reports published by a handful of websites that link him to an organized crime group allegedly involved in the assassination of Akhat Bragin, a close associate of Ukraine’s richest man Rinat Akhmetov.
In 1995, Bragin, president of the Shakhtar Donetsk soccer team, died when a bomb exploded at the stadium. Akhmetov eventually took over the soccer club and created a holding company for the industrial empire that belongs to him.
Everything that is going on around this person is a strong psychological shock to him, as he is used to other patterns of behavior,” said Podolyak. “It has become a full-scale campaign against him.
– Mykhaylo Podolyak, Ivaniushchenko’s adviser
The lawyers also say they will challenge reports that link Ivaniushchenko to the 2005 assassination of Anatoly Bandura, head of Mariupol-based Azov Shipping Company.
A portion of a statement by the prosecutor general, distributed at the press conference, said “Ivaniushchenko had no relation to these events.”
The statement added that prosecutors in Kyiv and Donetsk oblasts have been instructed to check Ivaniushchenko’s appeal about the deliberately untruthful statements alleging crimes disseminated by several Internet publications.
Statements from the Security Service of Ukraine and Interior Ministry were circulated refuting any involvement by Ivaniushchenko in criminal activities.
“Everything that is going on around this person is a strong psychological shock to him, as he is used to other patterns of behavior,” said Podolyak. “It has become a full-scale campaign against him.”
But despite numerous references to protecting Ivaniushchenko’s international business reputation, no details were given about his business interests at the press conference, apart from that currently he is on a business trip to the United States.
Earlier, Ukrainska Pravda reported that the parliamentarian hired a U.S. law firm to help with his visa application.
Ivaniushchenko is not the first Ukrainian to use lawyers to guard his reputation.
Akhmetov’s international legal team also has a good track record of obtaining retractions, public apologies or libel settlements from Ukrainian and foreign media.
Strangely, one of the arguments used by Ivaniushchenko’s legal team to emphasize their client’s impeccable reputation is the fact that his name is not mentioned in “Donetsk Mafia,” a controversial book by Borys Penchuk and Serhiy Kuzin about criminal gangs in Donetsk Oblast.
Published in 2006, the book contains numerous controversial statements about the prominent members of the Party of Regions, including Akhmetov and Deputy Prime Minister Borys Kolesnikov. Yet this didn’t prevent Ivaniushchenko’s lawyers to call the book a “fundamental work” filled with “real-life details.”
Podolyak, however, was quick to point out that he didn’t believe that all the information and allegations the book contains were necessarily true. Akhmetov and Kolesnikov have denied claims of wrongdoing that are made in the book.
Kyiv Post staff writer Vlad Lavrov can be reached at [email protected].
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