U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt has said that corruption actors within the Prosecutor General's office openly and aggressively undermine reforms in Ukraine.
“I know that [Ukrainian] President [Petro] Poroshenko and Prime Minister [Arseniy] Yatseniuk understand the importance of this issue and recognize the threat that business as usual represents for Ukraine’s hopes of political and economic transformation. However, there is one glaring problem that threatens all of the good work that regional leaders here in Odesa, in Kharkiv, in Lviv, and elsewhere are doing to improve the business climate and build a new model of government that serves the people. That problem threatens everything that the Rada, the Cabinet, the National Reform Council, and others are doing to push political and economic reforms forward and make life better for Ukrainians, and it flies in the face of what the Revolution of Dignity is trying to achieve. That obstacle is the failure of the institution of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine to successfully fight internal corruption. Rather than supporting Ukraine’s reforms and working to root out corruption, corrupt actors within the Prosecutor General’s office are making things worse by openly and aggressively undermining reform,” Pyatt said delivering a speech at Odesa Financial Forum on Thursday, who speech was released on the website of U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.
The diplomat said that in defiance of Ukraine’s leaders, these bad actors regularly hinder efforts to investigate and prosecute corrupt officials within the prosecutor general’s office.
“They intimidate and obstruct the efforts of those working honestly on reform initiatives within that same office,” he stressed.
Besides, Pyatt underlined that the United States stands behind newly-established Inspector General’s office in the PGO led by David Sakvarelidze and Vitaliy Kasko.
“Their investigations into corruption within the PGO, have delivered important arrests and have sent the signal that those who abuse their official positions as prosecutors will be investigated and prosecuted. I encourage all of you to speak up in support of these brave investigators and prosecutors. Give them the resources and support to successfully prosecute these and future cases,” the ambassador said.
He also said he learned that there have been times that “the PGO not only did not support investigations into corruption, but rather undermined prosecutors working on legitimate corruption cases.”
For example, in the case of former Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, the UK authorities had seized $23 million in illicit assets that belonged to the Ukrainian people.
“Officials at the Prosecutor General’s Office’s office were asked by the UK to send documents supporting the seizure. Instead they sent letters to Zlochevsky’s attorneys attesting that there was no case against him. As a result the money was freed by the U.K. court and shortly thereafter the money was moved to Cyprus. The misconduct by the PGO officials who wrote those letters should be investigated, and those responsible for subverting the case by authorizing those letters should – at a minimum – be summarily terminated,” Pyatt stressed.
Moreover, the diplomat said that the U.S. supports the work of the new Anti-Corruption Commission, and the recruitment of new prosecutors, and it urged Prosecutor General [Viktor] Shokin to empower Deputy Prosecutors Sakvarelidze and Kasko to implement reforms and bring to justice those who have violated the law, regardless of rank or status.
“We are prepared to partner with reformers within the PGO in the fight for anticorruption,” he said.
