Martha Boersch, a former U.S. federal prosecutor, has withdrawn her candidacy as an auditor of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, lawmaker Yegor Sobolev, ex-head of the Verkhovna Rada’s anti-corruption committee, said late on Feb. 7, citing a letter she had sent to him.
Meanwhile, fugitive lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko told the Kyiv Post on Feb. 8 that she had become a legal consultant for him. He said, however, that she would not be his defense lawyer but a consultant on issues that he would not like to discuss publicly.
Boersch could not be reached for comment.
Another candidate for a NABU auditor’s job, Serhiy Honcharenko, has also withdrawn his candidacy.
The only remaining candidate is Carlos Castresana Fernandez, a Spanish prosecutor who prosecuted 150 top officials at the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala.
Boersch, Castresana and Honcharenko were nominated as NABU auditors by parliament’s anti-corruption committee on Feb. 7.
Three NABU auditors must be appointed – one each from the parliament, the Cabinet of Ministers, and the president.
NABU auditors
Boersch successfully prosecuted ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who was sentenced in 2006 by a San Francisco court to nine years in prison and a $10 million fine.
However, President Petro Poroshenko and his supporters have been reluctant to appoint her and have pushed to appoint loyalists as NABU auditors. Critics have accused Poroshenko of trying to do so in order to fire NABU Chief Artem Sytnyk and gain control of the hitherto independent NABU.
In February 2017, the pro-Poroshenko majority unsuccessfully tried to push through parliament the appointment of a Poroshenko loyalist, Briton Nigel Brown, as a NABU auditor, without the anti-corruption committee’s approval. In July, Brown admitted that he had been invited to parliament for the vote on his candidacy by Artur Herasimov, the head of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko faction.
In May Mykhailo Buromensky, an alleged loyalist of the authorities, was appointed as a NABU auditor by the Cabinet of Ministers.
In July the pro-government majority in parliament also unsuccessfully tried to appoint another loyalist, Oleksandra Yanovska, as a NABU auditor.
Onyshchenko case
The NABU has charged Onyshchenko with stealing Hr 1.6 billion ($64 million) from state-owned gas producer Ukrgazvydobuvannya, which he denies. He fled Ukraine before he was stripped of his parliamentary immunity in July.
He has claimed that he was an intermediary in Poroshenko’s alleged efforts to bribe lawmakers, and paid bribes to Poroshenko allies for lucrative contracts with state firms.
Onyshchenko said in December 2016 he had given the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation evidence of the alleged corruption of Poroshenko and his inner circle – a claim that was neither confirmed nor denied by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Presidential Administration has dismissed Onyshchenko’s accusations as “absolutely false” and said that he was attempting to politicize the embezzlement case against him.
