Ukrainian authorities continued their attack on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, the country’s only independent law enforcement agency, on Dec. 7 and Dec. 8, despite strong warnings from Western officials in previous days.
The NABU has irritated the authorities by investigating cases of top officials’ corruption.
NAPC
The National Agency for Preventing Corruption, controlled by allies of President Petro Poroshenko, said on Dec. 8 that it had “temporarily” blocked the NABU’s full access to the electronic asset declaration register.
The public can access e-declarations partially, while some government agencies have full access to them, including to confidential information.
The NAPC claimed that in September a NABU employee had altered an official’s asset declaration. The NABU explained to the NAPC that it had been a technical error.
The NAPC said it had initiated an inspection and a criminal case into the issue, and would not allow the NABU to fully access declarations until the inspection is over.
Meanwhile, in November Hanna Solomatina, a top NAPC official, and other officials of the agency blew the whistle on the NAPC and said it was involved in large-scale corruption and was controlled by the Presidential Administration. The NAPC denies this.
The NABU’s investigation against alleged corruption at the NAPC was on Nov. 28 transferred on the orders of the Prosecutor General’s Office from the NABU to the presidentially controlled Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU. The transfer of the case to the SBU is deemed by critics to be an effort to bury the investigation, since the SBU is controlled by the Presidential Administration, which was accused by Solomatina of influencing her agency.
Sytnyk’s appointment
Meanwhile, the Kyiv Administrative District Court said on Dec. 7 that Law Studio, a law firm, had filed a lawsuit against NABU Chief Artem Sytnyk in an apparent effort to cancel his appointment as head of the bureau. The court is headed by Pavlo Vovk, reportedly a protege of President Petro Poroshenko’s top ally and lawmaker Oleksandr Hranovsky.
Law Studio, which is suing the State Fiscal Service, claims that Sytnyk’s asset declaration was checked incorrectly before he was appointed as head of the NABU in April 2015.
Much of Law Studio’s web site is devoted to criticism of the NABU.
In 2016 the NABU searched Law Studio’s premises as part of a corruption case against Oleksandr Kolesnyk, a deputy chief prosecutor of Kyiv Oblast.
Rozenblat’s lawsuit
Meanwhile, Boryslav Rozenblat, a lawmaker who was formerly a member of the Poroshenko Bloc, has filed a lawsuit with the Kyiv Administrative District Court seeking to recognize the investigation against him by the NABU and the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office as illegal.
Rozenblat and People’s Front lawmaker Maksym Polyakov are suspected 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.
In July the Verkhovna Rada stripped Rozenblat of his immunity from prosecution. The motions to strip them of their immunity from prosecution included minute details on the alleged corruption scheme, and the NABU has published extensive video footage of meetings between the two lawmakers and a NABU undercover agent.
Rozenblat was an official representative of Poroshenko during the 2014 presidential election.
Soboliev case?
Meanwhile, Yegor Soboliev, the former head of parliament’s anti-corruption committee, said on Dec. 8 that the Prosecutor General’s Office was fabricating a criminal case against him, accusing him of having links to Russia. The prosecutor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The Verkhovna Rada on Dec. 7 fired Soboliev, an outspoken critic of Poroshenko and a staunch defender of anti-corruption institutions, as chairman of the anti-corruption committee.
An earlier attempt to oust Sytnyk as head of the NABU came on Dec. 6, when Artur Herasymov, head of the 136-member Poroshenko Bloc, and Maksym Burbak, chief of the 81-member People’s Front faction, on Dec. 6 submitted a bill that would allow Poroshenko and the Verkhovna Rada to fire Sytnyk without an audit of the bureau. Under current law, Sytnyk can only be fired if an audit shows the bureau is performing poorly.
However, the bill was removed from parliament’s agenda early on Dec. 7 after strong criticism by Western officials overnight.
