Reformer of the week: Volodymyr Kryvenko
Volodymyr Kryvenko, a deputy chief anti-corruption prosecutor of Ukraine, has led the corruption case against lawmaker Boryslav Rozenblat in court in recent weeks.
Rozenblat, an ex-member of President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, and People’s Front lawmaker Maxim Polyakov are suspected by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine of taking bribes worth about $300,000 to initiate laws on amber production, organize an illegal amber mining scheme and bribe other officials, judges and prosecutors for that purpose. Both have denied accusations of wrongdoing.
Parliament stripped both lawmakers of immunity on July 13 but refused to authorize their arrest, triggering accusations that it is covering up for corruption.
Rozenblat said on July 24 that his family had posted his Hr 7 million bail. Meanwhile, he refused to submit his foreign passport to the authorities despite a court ruling that required him to do so, arguing that it was illegal.
Meanwhile, Poroshenko has been accused of trying to install NABU auditors loyal to him so that he can control the bureau. The latest such attempt happened on July 13, though it was unsuccessful.
Reformist lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko argued on July 26 that Ukrainian authorities would also try to strip Gizo Uglava, a deputy chief of the NABU, of his Ukrainian citizenship. The Prosecutor General’s Office has opened an investigation against Uglava, accusing him of hiding his Georgian citizenship and tax evasion.
Anti-reformer of the week: Volodymyr Babenko
Volodymyr Babenko, chairman of Cherkasy Oblast’s Court of Appeal, on July 25 stepped down along with the court’s other top judges.
In June the High Qualification Commission asked the High Council of Justice to fire Babenko.
In 2015 Serhiy Bondarenko, a judge of Cherkasy Oblast’s Court of Appeal, released a recording of Babenko pressuring him to make an unlawful decision in 2013. Babenko is being investigated for this.
Meanwhile, Sergiy Gorbatuk, head of the department for trials in absentia at the Prosecutor General’s Office, wrote in a July 26 letter to the AutoMaidan protest group that Babenko was under investigation on charges of embezzlement and issuing unlawful rulings against EuroMaidan demonstrators.
However, Deputy Prosecutor General Yury Stolyarchuk refused to approve a notice of suspicion for Babenko and then took the embezzlement case away from Gorbatuk’s department, Gorbatuk wrote. AutoMaidan lawyer Roman Maselko believes this to be an effort to cover up for Babenko.
Gorbatuk filed a complaint with Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, accusing Stolyarchuk of committing a crime by unlawfully interfering with his department, but Lutsenko did not respond.
The Prosecutor General’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
