The
explanation for this is simple: the General Prosecutor’s Office has not yet
made notification on their suspicion of
committing corruption crimes.
Until now
the EU has blocked their accounts and assets exclusively based on its political
will, seeking to help Ukraine to return stolen assets. However, the Ukrainian
side does not hurry to return these assets.
On March 5, the European Council made a huge favor for the stupid
Ukrainian judicial system. It extended sanctions for another year against 18 former senior
officials, including Yanukovych, his family and former Ukrainian top officials.
This was
possible because most persons on sanction list were notified on suspicion of
committing crimes related to theft of state property only after a strong public
pressure. At the same time the prosecutor did not see anything suspicious even in actions of odious ex-member of parliament Yuriy
Ivaniushchenko.
If the EU
does not receive from the Ukrainian side indisputable evidence as soon as
possible, the sanctions against the remaining blacklisted persons would be lifted as well as they has been lifted from former head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Oleksandr Yakymenko, his deputy, Igor Kalinin and son of former prime
minister Mykola Azarov, Alexei Azarov.
However,
the prosecutor keeps silence.
Prosecutor
General Viktor Shokin is becoming Vitaly Yarema-2 even faster than Yarema himself. It is
necessary to have some “special” abilities and understanding of the law, not to
see the crimes committed by Tabachnyk or Kliuyev, who until recently has been officially
owner of primary evidence of crimes of Yanukovych, his billion-dollar residence Mezhyhirya, and now, along with his brother, trying to sell their energy assets to
the Chinese businessman.
It is
worth mentioning that due to inactivity of prosecution, in December 2014 Sergei
Kliuyev quietly has withdrawn his money from the
company Tantalit through (which made transactions for purchasing luxury items
for Mezhyhirya). All documents and evidence of such transactions have been
carefully collected and transferred to the prosecutor by investigative journalists in
February and March 2014.
Former prosecutors general Oleh Mahnitskiy and Yarema had no time to do that. It looks like
Shokin has no time as well.
Perhaps the prosecutor is in no hurry to set a precedent of removing
immunity of a member of parliament, such as Sergei Kliuyev, for corruption offenses. Should this happen and a good part of the current Parliament will
lose their mandates, including the deputy head of the presidential faction
Ihor Kononenko or one of the
financial donors of the prime minister’s faction, Mykola Martynenko[10].
Instead,
Shokin and his investigative team continues tradition launched by Yarema – the lifting of sanctions because of the
inability (or unwillingness?) of Ukrainian law enforcement officials to
investigate corruption crimes – something that the lawyers of Yanukovych, Viktor Pshonka, Andrei Portnov and Sergei Kliuyev are looking forward. They are appealing the sanctions in the
European Court of Justice. They will definitely use the prosecutors’ inaction use to
protect their generous customers.
At least
in this four weeks the prosecutor has to decide to remove from Sergei Kliuyev’s
immunity or the EU sanctionsl
Shokin
has to remember the fate of his predecessor. If sanctions are lifted, an outraged society can remove the prosecutor general. According
to Ukrainian law, to make notification of suspicion to members of parliament, first his immunity
should be lifted. To do this, the prosecutor general should submit to
Parliament a request for which at least 226 deputies must approve.
Daryna Kalenyuk and Vitaliy Shabunin work at the AntiCorruption Action Centre.
