Ukraine’s controversial chief anti-corruption prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytsky, who was under investigation for divulging secrets about corruption cases, looks to be off the hook for now.
According to a statement by the Prosecutor General’s Office published by the Ukrainska Pravda online newspaper on Jan. 29, the Security Service of Ukraine has now closed a criminal case against Kholodnytsky, saying it has concluded that he did not commit a crime.
The case was opened in March on suspicions that Kholodnytsky had divulged secret case information, but he was never officially charged.
If a notice of suspicion for Kholodnytsky had been filed, it could have been grounds for firing him. Civil activists say the authorities wanted to avoid that.
“The incumbent authorities will keep (Kholodnytsky in place) as long as possible in the run-up to the (presidential and parliamentary) elections, because lawmakers and presidential allies don’t want to be charged,” Olena Shcherban, a lawyer at the Anti-Corruption Action Center watchdog, told the Kyiv Post.
“They want to use him against their competitors and to ensure the immunity of their supporters from prosecution.”
She said the case had been closed to make sure that even the next prosecutor general is unable to fire Kholodnytsky.
Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, said on Facebook that Kholodnytsky had recently saved from prosecution the Dubnevych brothers – lawmakers from the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko in parliament, along with People’s Front lawmaker Denys Dzenzersky and regional lawmakers from the Opposition Bloc.
Kholodnytsky has blocked and sabotaged numerous investigations by the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine, or NABU, since the tapes were released, the Anti-Corruption Action Center has claimed.
Kholodnytsky denies accusations of sabotaging NABU investigations.
The list of corruption cases allegedly blocked by Kholodnytsky published online by the Anti-Corruption Action Center includes ones against Interior Minister Arsen Avakov’s son Oleksandr, Vishneve Mayor Ilya Dikov, General Pavlo Tkachuk, ex-State Aviation Service Chief Denys Antonyuk, executives of tycoon Dmytro Firtash’s Zaporizhzhia Titanium and Magnesium Plant, and People’s Front party lawmaker Georgy Logvynsky.
The list also includes cases against State Health Inspection Service Chief Svyatoslav Protas; ex-Central Election Commission Chairman Mykhailo Okhensovsky; Arsen Isaakyan, head of the State Innovative Finance and Credit Institution, and Natalia Korchak, head of the National Agency for Preventing Corruption.
In March, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko asked the High Qualification Commission of Prosecutors to consider firing Kholodnytsky.
However, the commission decided in July not to fire Kholodnytsky and merely reprimanded him.
