Reformer of the week – Oleksandr Snegiryov
Anti-corruption prosecutor Oleksandr Snegiryov on Nov. 1 led the graft case against Interior Minister Arsen Avakov’s son Oleksandr, ex-Deputy Interior Minister Serhiy Chebotar and IT firm Turboseo’s CEO Volodymyr Lytvyn.
The three are accused of embezzling Hr 14 million by supplying overpriced backpacks to the Interior Ministry, which is confirmed by video footage published online. However, the suspects were released by the court without bail under what critics believe to be political pressure.
Meanwhile, in video footage recorded by the Security Service of Ukraine and recognized by courts as genuine, Chebotar, the Interior Ministry’s State Secretary Oleksiy Takhtai and state firm Spetsvervis CEO Vasyl Petrivsky, an ex-aide to Avakov, negotiate a corrupt deal to sell sand at a rigged auction.
In the video, Chebotar says that Avakov is also aware of the deal and is worried that the sand has not been sold yet. Petrivsky has pled guilty and has been convicted in a theft case for selling the sand.
The NABU is also investigating Avakov’s deputy Vadym Troyan over video footage where people resembling Troyan and Chebotar discuss corrupt revenues from the traffic police and extorting money from businesspeople. Troyan’s house was also searched in July as part of a bribery case.
Avakov, his son, Chebotar, Lytvyn, Takhtai and Troyan deny the corruption accusations.
Anti-reformer of the week – Pavlo Grechkivsky
Pavlo Grechkivsky, a member of the High Council of Justice, played a key role in the appointment of a new Supreme Court in September despite having been charged in a graft case.
President Petro Poroshenko is scheduled to decide on signing the new Supreme Court judges’ credentials by Nov. 9. In September, the High Council of Justice appointed 111 new Supreme Court judges, including 25 discredited judges who participated in political cases, who have undeclared wealth, or who are under investigation in graft cases.
The High Council of Justice ignored vetoes on the 25 candidates imposed by the Public Integrity Council, a civil society watchdog.
Grechkivsky has been charged with fraud, and High Commercial Court Chairman Bohdan Lvov, who was appointed by the council as a Supreme Court judge, is also under investigation in the case. According to the investigators, Grechkivsky promised to help in a legal dispute with Lvov’s assistance for $500,000.
Prosecutors sent the Grechkivsky case to court in October.
Lvov is also under investigation in the case in which ex-High Commercial Court Chairman Viktor Tatkov and his deputy Artur Yemelyanov have been charged with unlawfully interfering in the automatic distribution of cases.
Tatkov and Yemelyanov are accused of having run one of the largest corruption and corporate raiding schemes under Yanukovych.
Grechkivsky, reportedly an ally of ex-People’s Front lawmaker Mykola Martynenko and President Petro Poroshenko’s top ally Igor Kononenko, used to co-own 7.5 hectares of land with Yemelyanov and was suspected by prosecutors of illegally privatizing it, according to a Radio Liberty investigation. Grechkivsky and Lvov deny the graft accusations.
Meanwhile, newly-appointed Supreme Court judges Vyacheslav Nastavny and Serhiy Slynko participated in the political persecution of Yuriy Lutsenko, now prosecutor general, and the Pavlychenko family under ex-President Viktor Yanukovych. Both cases have been recognized as political by Ukrainian and European authorities.
The High Council of Justice has also been criticized for dismissing 48 out of its members’ 52 recusals from voting for specific Supreme Court candidates due to a conflict of interest. The council also appointed two of its members as Supreme Court judges and did not recuse another member who was a candidate in the Supreme Court competition – moves that critics see as a conflict of interest.
Meanwhile, Ihor Benedysyuk, chairman of the High Council of Justice, was simultaneously a judge of a Russian court martial and a Ukrainian one in 1994. Public Integrity Council members say that Russian citizenship was a necessary precondition of being a Russian judge, and that his appointment as a judge of Ukraine and later a member of the High Council of Justice was illegal if he had Russian citizenship or was not a Ukrainian citizen. The High Council of Justice has refused to say whether and when he terminated his Russian citizenship and got a Ukrainian one, or provide any documentary evidence.
