Gadfly banker criticized government for corruption
ned the detention of a high-profile businessman and candidate in upcoming elections, accusing the authorities of seeking to silence a vocal critic and frighten other rivals of President Leonid Kuchma and his allies.
The criticism came a day after police detained Mykhaylo Brodsky, president of Dendi, a financial concern that saw many of its operations collapse last year amid probes by law enforcement bodies.
Brodsky is running for mayor of Kyiv and for a Parliament seat in March 29 elections.
Brodsky was charged Wednesday with receiving large sums of money through illegal trade activity, Interior Ministry spokesman Viktor Krivorotko said. A prosecutor will soon decide whether to keep Brodsky under lock and key while he awaits trial or free him on condition he does not leave Kyiv, he said.
Police also detained the general director of Dendi. The detentions were linked with criminal cases involving Dendi that were opened last year and 'demand immediate lawful resolution,' an Interior Ministry statement said. It said earlier efforts to prosecute Brodsky were unsuccessful because of legislation – voided by Parliament last month – that had granted local lawmakers immunity. Brodsky is a member of a Kyiv district council. Brodsky has declared a hunger strike and said his detention was politically motivated, the newspaper Kievskie Vedomosti reported Wednesday. Brodsky is a shareholder in the popular paper.
An editorial in Kievskie Vedomosti speculated the detention was prompted in part by recent articles criticizing Kuchma and his circle.
Interior Ministry spokesman Viktor Krivorotko said Brodsky's detention had nothing to do with politics, calling it a 'purely criminal' matter.
Ukrainian Security and Defense Council Secretary Volodymyr Horbulin also said police 'would not have taken this step without grounds.'
Horbulin said that Bank Dendi, one of the Dendi concern branches that collapsed last year, owed depositors more than Hr 4 million ($2 million). Brodsky has contended that the bank's failure was prompted by government investigations and interference.
Other politicians echoed Brodsky's accusation that his detention was politically motivated. 'The authorities have joined the political struggle, bringing law enforcement organs into it,' the newspaper Den quoted former Prime Minister and lawmaker Yevhen Marchuk as saying. The liberal Reforms and Order party said the detention 'affirms the current authorities' attempts, under the guise of a struggle with criminal elements, to remove its political opponents and bring Ukraine closer to an authoritarian, undemocratic regime,' the Interfax news agency reported.
With the elections approaching, Kuchma's administration has been accused of abusing its power in an effort to weaken the opposition. Earlier this year, the government ordered the closure of a newspaper supportive of Pavlo Lazarenko, a former prime minister who now leads an opposition party and is himself the subject of a criminal investigation.
