A year after the arson of Vitaliy Shabunin’s house: no progress in the investigation
A year ago, on July 23, 2020, the house of Anti-Corruption Action Center’s head of board Vitaliy Shabunin was firebombed. As a result, his house was severely damaged and his parents-in-law who stayed in the house escaped only by accident. Later in December 2020, explosive-like devices were simultaneously tossed to the apartments of Vitaliy’s mother and his in-laws. During the year, the police did not manage to identify not only instigators but even executors of those attacks. According to ZMINA Human Rights Centre, the number of attacks against civic activists keeps increasing and no proper investigation is conducted.
Selection of new SAPO head is paused for an indefinite period
On July 26, the stage of integrity interviews of Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor head selection ended. Only two candidates passed it. Since then the competition was stopped again. Although the process itself is already discredited. The parliamentary quota of the Commission expelled worthy independent candidates and brazenly tried to nominate pro-government ones.
The key reason for the pause is that the Presidential Office is clearly not satisfied with the leader of the rating, namely detective of the NABU Oleksander Klymenko, who led the investigation regarding Oleg Tatarov. There are several scenarios of the way out of this situation for the Office. However, at the moment the Office presumably decided to postpone any decisions regarding the competition until the President’s trip to the US is over.
SBU attempted to kidnap NABU’s suspect Judge Chaus
On July 30, the Security Service of Ukraine illegally detained fugitive Hudge Mykola Chaus in what looks like a kidnapping incident. The latter is investigated for bribery by the NABU since 2016. Once he was found, Chaus should have been transferred to the NABU, instead, the SBU hid Chaus until August 4. The incident is another evidence of the use of the SBU in political activities and misuse of their law enforcement powers.
SAPO returns ZTMK plant owned by Firtash back to state
On Aug. 4, the Commercial Court of Zaporizhia Oblast upheld the claim of the SAPO in the interests of the state against Tolexis Trading Limited (Cyprus company controlled by oligargh Dmytro Firtash). According to the court’s decision, Zaporizhia titanium and magnesium plant LLC (ZTMK) is returned to state ownership. The NABU and the SAPO have been investigating the scheme of large-scale embezzlement of state funds related to ZTMK since 2016.
Tetiana Shevchuk is a lawyer with the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv.
