Renat Kuzmin’s public persona as a combative prosecutor was nowhere in evidence during a Kyiv Post interview this month.
Ukraine’s first deputy general prosecutor poured tea for the journalist, posed for pictures, handed out souvenirs and patiently sat for more than two hours, calmly if not always squarely fielding every question put to him.
Kuzmin didn’t even take the bait in response to sharp criticism of him from freshly pardoned ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, with whom he has had a war of words for many years.
Lutsenko, the nation’s former top cop, blamed Kuzmin for his abuse-of-office conviction that landed him in prison before President Viktor Yanukovych pardoned him on April 7, saying: “Kuzmin must bear responsibility as the main inquisitor of our country and has become a multiple-use weapon against the political opposition of Ukraine.”
Kuzmin’s response: “I’m not going to comment on Lutsenko’s statements.”
Kuzmin also betrayed no anger over imprisoned ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who the prosecutor believes is complicit in the 1996 murder of millionaire member of parliament Yevhen Shcherban, among other crimes.
Does Tymoshenko deserve a pardon?
“The procedure of pardon may be applied to any criminal including Tymoshenko,” Kuzmin said dryly.
Is the murder case against Tymoshenko falling apart, considering testimony that she had no dispute with the victim?
“Tymoshenko’s case is not falling apart.”
And so it went with the man whose name is believed to be at or near the top of the target list in the West if sanctions – visa bans and asset investigations – are ever imposed against Ukrainian officials blamed for human rights violations.
Kuzmin, 45, has worked as a prosecutor for more than 20 years and came to Kyiv from Donetsk, just like President Viktor Yanukovych and Kuzmin’s boss, General Prosecutor Viktor Pshonka.
Kuzmin’s background and the criminal prosecutions of high-level political opponents of Yanukovych have put him frequently on the defensive. He is regularly forced to deflect criticism that he’s the ruling Party of Regions prosecutor. The convictions of Tymoshenko and Lutsenko are, in particular, regularly cited in the West as examples of political persecution.
“I’m deputy general prosecutor for everybody,” Kuzmin said. “The fact that I’m investigating criminal cases against politicians causes criticism from politicians.”
‘Crime will be solved’
In his own defense, the prosecutor’s top example of his apolitical pursuit of truth and justice is the seemingly endless criminal investigation into whether former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma ordered the Sept. 16, 2000 murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze.
He continues to insist that prosecutors will bring the case to court soon.
“Unfortunately, many mistakes were made during the initial stage of investigation many years ago,” Kuzmin said. “The investigation encountered many obstacles and the objective situation in the country impeded the just and fair investigation of this very case. Today nothing hinders our investigation. We are dealing with the solution of this very crime and we have moved ahead a lot. The establishment of the men who ordered this crime is a matter of honor for the prosecution service and of all Ukrainian authorities.”
Kuzmin said that part of the current delay stems from investigators’ efforts to determine whether Kuchma had any role in Shcherban’s murder as well. “The investigators are checking Kuchma’s implication (in the crime),” he said.
As for the 13-year delay in the Gongadze case, Kuzmin strongly suggested obstruction of justice by the former president: “When people occupy the highest governmental positions of the state, they have sufficient means to escape criminal liability. The old Soviet criminal code in effect gave them such possibilities and political influence in the country made these people untouchable.”
But the person who ordered Gongadze’s murder will be brought to justice soon, he said. “We have no doubts that this crime will be solved.”
Prosecutors’ powers
The commanding role of the prosecutor in Ukraine is front and center in critiques of Ukraine’s judicial system as politicized, secretive, cruel, corrupt and unfair.
The prosecutor has had a near-monopoly on powers over all phases of the criminal justice system, deciding who gets investigated, arrested and charged. Given the lack of jury trials and a 99 percent conviction rate before judges, critics argue that prosecutors decide who is guilty as well.
Kuzmin doesn’t put up much of an argument when confronted with the criticism. It turns out that he agrees. “This observation had been fair until last November,” he said, referring to when a new criminal code took force that was championed by Yanukovych.
The new code “is one of the most up-to-date democratic and humane codes in the world,” Kuzmin said. “During 20 years of Ukrainian statehood, no president changed the effective Soviet legislation and only President Yanukovych signed the law adopted by the parliament that fully changed the old communist Soviet system to the new democratic one.”
The new procedures will take power out of the hands of the prosecutor, Kuzmin said, which he called a “very good” development.
More widespread use of jury trials are envisioned – letting ordinary citizens decide guilt or innocence. Investigations will be done by police. More powers are given to the defense. The new law has provisions for the appointment of special prosecutors for investigations against high-ranking politicians, so that when “criminals themselves come to power” as Kuzmin puts it, they will have a harder time obstructing justice. Greater use of plea bargains is expected. Defendants accused of non-violent crimes also won’t face pre-trial detention.
Kuzmin says he is happy for the diminution of prosecutorial powers, which he hopes will lead to “more trust and more respect” for the legal system and lessen criticism of politically motivated prosecutions.
“Tymoshenko was convicted by the old Soviet criminal procedure code that was adopted more than a half-century ago during (Nikita) Khrushchev’s times. As it is known, Khrushchev was an ally of Josef Stalin. He worked together with (Soviet secret police chief) Lavrentiy Beriya and naturally, the code regulating the judicial procedures was completely permeated with Communist Soviet ideology…many requirements of this old criminal procedure code did not include the democratic free principles of the Western judicial proceedings.”
Had Tymoshenko been tried in 2011 for abuse of office under the new criminal code, including a jury trial, “defintely there would be less criticism towards the Ukrainian authorities,” Kuzmin acknowledged.
But if the old law was so bad, why didn’t Kuzmin apply more prosecutorial discretion in enforcing it? “Nobody has the right to invent comfortable procedures. We were forced to apply the law that was effective at that very period.”
Other highlights of interview with Renat Kuzmin:
On his call for criminalizing defamation: Kuzmin says his proposal was misunderstood as an attack on free speech. He said that he only wants to outlaw threats against judges and prosecutors that impede justice.
On the fairness of his accusations that European member of parliament Elmar Brok, a vocal Kuzmin critic, consorted with prostitutes and drank heavily during a December visit to Kyiv: Kuzmin again says he was misunderstood and just making a hypothetical example. “I said that if we use the rhetoric that Elmar Brok allows himself to use, then he might be asked concerning this story (about prostitutes and drinking.)…If I behaved as he behaves, I could operate with this story. But I can’t behave like this.”
On whether Rinat Akhmetov was ever investigated in the 1996 murder of member of parliament Yevhen Shcherban: “We considered and studied all the versions, including this one” and found no evidence.
On whether his visa to America was revoked last October because he violated the rules by conducting an investigation while visiting on a tourist visa: “It’s not true. I had an A1/BI visa (both work and tourist)…I participated in (ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo) Lazarenko’s interrogations together with American prosecutors and I had no other visa.”
On what could be the possible basis for his arrest in America during a visit last summer: “It is difficult for me to say what the charges might have been.”
On whether it’s a conflict of interest for him to accept PR services from Burston-Marsteller, reportedly hired by the ruling Party of Regions: “I have no contracts, orders with the company mentioned by you. And I don’t know how that company works and who pays it.”
Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner can be reached at [email protected].
