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Ukrainian courts and the Interior Ministry have destroyed the hidden camera used to record videos implicating Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and his top allies in alleged corruption, Radio Liberty’s Schemes investigative show reported on April 27.
Avakov and his allies deny accusations of wrongdoing.
According to Ukraine’s official court register, Kyiv Oblast’s Boryspil Court on July 7, 2017 ruled that the hidden camera used to record the videos should be destroyed.
The ruling was issued after the court sentenced state firm Spetsvervis CEO Vasyl Petrivsky, an ex-aide to Avakov, to a suspended 4-year prison term as part of a plea bargain in a theft case for a sand sale scheme described in one of the videos recorded by the camera.
Serhiy Voznyuk, head of Boryspil Court who ordered the destruction of the hidden camera, told Schemes he had issued the ruling because the prosecutor said the evidence was not being used in other cases.
The Interior Ministry said that it had seized the camera but did not officially confirm whether it had been destroyed.
According to an Interior Ministry source cited by Schemes, a ministry commission destroyed the camera in the summer of 2017.
In the video involved in the case and leaked to the Internet, Avakov’s former deputy Serhiy Chebotar, the Interior Ministry’s incumbent State Secretary Oleksiy Takhtai and Petrivsky in Chebotar’s office negotiate a corrupt deal to sell sand at a rigged auction in 2014.
In the video, Chebotar implicates Avakov himself in the deal, saying that the minister is also aware of the scheme and is worried that the sand has not been sold yet. Avakov claims the video is a fake.
According to Ukraine’s court register, the video was recorded by the Security Service of Ukraine and has been acknowledged as genuine.
Despite the verdict against Petrivsky, the National Police did not pursue the investigation against Takhtai, Chebotar and Avakov and closed the case.
In another video recorded by the same hidden camera, Avakov’s son Oleksandr and Chebotar discuss in Chebotar’s office in 2014 a corrupt scheme to supply backpacks to the National Guard.
In October 2017, Oleksandr Avakov and Chebotar were arrested and charged by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine with embezzling Hr 14 million in a case related to the supply of overpriced backpacks to the Interior Ministry. However, Oleksandr Avakov was released without bail due to what critics believe his father’s influence.
In another video recorded by the camera and being investigated by the NABU, Avakov’s deputy Vadym Troyan and Chebotar discuss corrupt revenues from the traffic police and extorting money from businesspeople.
Troyan’s house was searched in July as part of a bribery case. The Security Service of Ukraine and prosecutors said that three associates of Troyan had been arrested for extorting a Hr 1.5 million bribe, while he had nothing to do with the bribery. The statement was seen by Troyan’s critics as an effort to let him escape punishment.
In the video footage, Avakov’s business partner and lawmaker Igor Kotvitsky is also seen giving alcohol and a bag with unidentified content to Chebotar, discussing alleged corruption schemes with him and then participating in a discussion involving Avakov’s son Oleksandr about the backpack supply scheme. He says the video is a fake.
Kotvitsky, referred to by Ukrainian media as “Avakov’s wallet,” is under investigation by the NABU over an undeclared transfer of $40 million to Panama in 2014.
