A former top official of disgraced president Viktor Yanykovych’s government was arrested at Kyiv’s Zhulyany airport on Aug. 27, where she had arrived after five years in hiding.
Raisa Bogatyrova was on the wanted list on suspicion of embezzling Hr 6.5 million ($257,200 at the current exchange rate) of state funds during medical procurement.
She was placed in a temporary detention facility for a night. On Aug. 28, a court arrested her for 60 days and set a bail at Hr 6 million.
Once called the most influential Ukrainian woman after ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Bogatyrova served as secretary of the National Security and Defense Council and then as Minister of Health until President Yanukovych was ousted from power in the 2014 EuroMaidan revolution. Like her former boss and many colleagues, she left Ukraine and for a long time her whereabouts were unknown.
Two weeks earlier, Kyiv’s Holosiiv District Court obliged the Prosecutor General’s Office to close a probe against Bogatyrova because the deadline for pre-trial investigation had passed. This may be a reason why she decided to return to Ukraine.
However, prosecutors filed an appeal and did not remove Bogatyrova from the wanted list of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry. She remained there after Interpol removed her name from the international wanted list in 2016.
Sergii Gorbatuk, head of the in absentia investigations unit at the Prosecutor General’s Office, told the Kyiv Post that the court had no right to close the case during the pre-trial stage. He said that, under Ukrainian law, cases can only be closed after they are sent to trial.
