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Reformer of the week – Oleksiy Donsky
Oleksiy Donsky headed the prosecution unit of Sergii Gorbatuk’s department for in absentia cases, which was liquidated on July 11. The department also had an investigative unit.
The prosecution unit of the in absentia cases department will be merged into the department for State Investigation Bureau cases, headed by Serhiy Kiz, a protégé of Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko. Donsky told the Kyiv Post that it would be much easier for the leadership of the prosecutor’s office to interfere in EuroMaidan cases after the restructuring.
He said, however, that he would apply for the job of the head of the new prosecution unit. It is not clear, however, whether he will be appointed.
Donsky has acquired the reputation of being one of Ukraine’s few independent and outspoken prosecutors.
He has prosecuted criminal cases against ex-Berkut riot police officers accused of murdering EuroMaidan Revolution protesters, Russia’s alleged involvement in the murders and a corruption case against ex-Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka.
In 2014, Donsky tried to arrest Berkut commander Dmytro Sadovnyk after he was released by Judge Svitlana Volkova. But the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office refused to provide a special forces unit to make the arrest, and Sadovnyk fled, Donsky said.
Anti-reformer of the week – Yuriy Lutsenko
Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko on July 11 liquidated the in absentia cases department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, which investigates the murders of more than 100 participants of the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution and other cases.
Two other units will be formed out of the department, which was headed by Sergii Gorbatuk. The Prosecutor General’s Office said all investigators and prosecutors of the department would keep their jobs.
Gorbatuk attributed the liquidation of his department to his criticism of the authorities’ alleged shady dealings with ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s associates.
The Prosecutor General’s Office denied the accusations of retribution. Instead, the office said the restructuring was in line with the concept of separating investigative and prosecution functions.
The lawyers of EuroMaidan protesters said on June 25 that the liquidation of Gorbatuk’s unit “will lead to the collapse of EuroMaidan investigations.”
According to the liquidation plan, prosecutors from Gorbatuk’s unit and other units will be overseen by Deputy Prosecutor General Yuriy Stolyarchuk, while investigators from the in absentia cases unit and other units will be supervised by Deputy Prosecutor General Anzhela Stryzhevska, Gorbatuk said earlier.
The plans to liquidate Gorbatuk’s department were announced days after Gorbatuk and one of his subordinates, Andriy Radionov, said that Stryzhevska and another deputy prosecutor general, Eugene Enin, had no right to negotiate with fugitive ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Energy Minister Eduard Stavytsky. Enin and Stryzhevska say the negotiations complied with the law.
Enin and Stryzhevska met with Stavytsky in 2016 in a hotel in Tel Aviv in Israel to negotiate the charges against him, according to an audio recording of the meeting leaked to Slidstvo.Info and published on June 9. They said in the recording they were acting on Lutsenko’s orders.
The recording implies that the investigators could have conspired with the ex-minister, who has been wanted for embezzlement since 2014, in a backroom deal to soften the charges against him. 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.
