See related stories here, here and here.
Reformer of the week – Andriy Radionov
Andriy Radionov, who was in charge of the corruption case against ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Energy Minister Eduard Stavytsky, blew the whistle on his superiors in a June 19 interview with the Slidstvo.info investigative show.
Eugene Enin and Anzhela Stryzhevska – deputies of Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko – had no procedural status in the corruption case against Stavytsky, Radionov told Slidstvo.info in an interview published on June 19.
The version of events given by Radionov, who works at the in absentia trials unit of the Prosecutor General’s Office, contradicts the official one given earlier by the Prosecutor General’s Office, which said it was an official meeting. However, Sergii Gorbatuk, the head of the unit, also confirmed to the Kyiv Post that Enin and Stryzhevska had no right to hold such negotiations.
Days after Gorbatuk and Radionov made the comments, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko gave an order to liquidate Gorbatuk’s department in what the latter sees as revenge for his criticism of alleged shady dealings between top officials and Yanukovych allies. Gorbatuk said Stryzhevska would oversee prosecutors and investigators transferred from his unit.
“During the visit to Israel no procedural actions were taken, and all the requirements of the law, including international treaties, were complied with,” Enin told the Kyiv Post on June 20.
Enin and Stryzhevska met with Stavytsky in November 2016 in a hotel in Tel Aviv in Israel to negotiate over the charges against him, according to an audio recording of the meeting leaked to Slidstvo.Info and published on June 9.
The recording implies that the investigators may have conspired with the ex-minister, who has been wanted for embezzlement since 2014, in a backroom deal to soften the charges against him.
In the leaked audio, the officials were negotiating a possible change in the charges against Stavytsky. They warned him that some charges could result in a confiscation of his assets, a warning seemingly aimed at helping him retain his assets.
The journalists also released another tape – an audio recording of a call between a man sounding like Stavytsky and an unidentified mediator, whom he refers to as “Kolya.” They discuss the future meeting with Stryzhevska, and “Kolya” says he will bring and offer her “200” – presumably a bribe of $200,000. The man who sounds like Stavytsky approves the plan.
Anti-reformer of the week – Pavlo Zhebrivsky
President Petro Poroshenko on June 19 appointed his long-time loyalist and former Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Zhebrivsky as an auditor of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine.
NABU Chief Artem Sytnyk, who is seen as independent from Poroshenko, can be fired as a result of a negative conclusion by NABU auditors.
Zhebrivsky does not have experience in foreign law enforcement, judicial agencies or international organizations, and therefore his appointment violates the law, the Anti-Corruption Action Center and the NABU’s civic oversight council said.
Zhebrivsky told the LB.ua website that his experience was sufficient to be a NABU auditor, arguing that he was a member of Ukrainian parliamentary delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe from 2007 to 2012.
The Verkhovna Rada on June 7 also appointed Volodymyr Vasylenko as an auditor of the NABU. According to the Apostrof news site’s sources, Vasylenko was the government’s preferred candidate for NABU auditor. Vasylenko’s son is Andriy Vasylenko, a member of the government-controlled High Qualification Commission.
In May 2017 Mykhailo Buromensky, another alleged loyalist of the authorities, was appointed a NABU auditor by the Cabinet of Ministers.
