Interpol’s decision to remove ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, his chief of staff Andriy Klyuyev and his Energy Minister Eduard Stavytsky from its wanted list in late April is an epitaph to Ukrainian law enforcement and the search for justice after the EuroMaidan Revolution.
Over the past three years, Ukrainian authorities have buried corruption cases against Yanukovych and his entourage. Only one minor corruption case against a top Yanukovych-era official, ex-Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych, has been sent to trial. Several major cases have been closed.
Why? Because Ukraine’s ruling kleptocracy is so deeply mired in corruption and lawlessness that it is neither capable of investigating graft, nor willing to do so.
The incumbent ruling elite was closely intertwined with Yanukovych’s thievish regime, and any testimony in Yanukovych cases would also expose current top officials.
And indeed, there is evidence that Ukrainian top officials have helped Yanukovych allies to escape justice — possibly in exchange for money. Ex-Deputy Prosecutor General Mykola Herasimyuk was offered bribes to drop charges against Yanukovych allies, according to emails published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, although he denies this. In 2014 he failed to help British authorities to investigate the case against ex-Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky.
Instead of investigating high-profile cases, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko is staging a circus show. In March a court ruled on the confiscation of $1.5 billion linked to Yanukovych’s regime in what critics say was a political show trial manipulated by Lutsenko and prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulik — himself a suspect in a graft case.
Both the investigation and the trial were conducted in secret and in just two weeks. The money that was confiscated had nothing to do with the criminal case in question, and the court had no jurisdiction over it.
Only the creation of independent and graft-free law enforcement agencies can solve the problem. But this could happen only after fresh elections and a complete re-boot of the entire political system.
