Two deputy prosecutor generals who met with a fugitive Ukrainian minister in Israel in 2016 were acting beyond their authority, Andriy Radionov, the investigator in charge of the case at the time, has said.
Eugene Enin and Anzhela Stryzhevska – deputies of Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko – had no procedural status in the corruption case against fugitive ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Energy Minister Eduard Stavytsky, Radionov told the investigative TV program Slidstvo.info in an interview published on June 19.
“I don’t know their motives and how they were justifying their actions, but they were not prosecutors in this case,” Radionov said. “How they determined their authority and how they were justifying their actions is a question for them to answer.”
The version of Radionov, who works at the in absentia trials unit of the Prosecutor General’s Office, contradicts the official version of events earlier given by the Prosecutor General’s Office. However, Sergii Gorbatuk, the head of the unit, commenting to Kyiv Post on June 20, also confirmed that Enin and Stryzhevska had no right to hold such negotiations.
“During the visit to Israel no procedural actions were taken, and all the requirements of the law, including international treaties, were complied with,” Enin told the Kyiv Post on June 20.
Enin’s statement appears to contradict his earlier comments on the issue, since the absence of procedural actions indicates the unofficial character of the meeting.
He confirmed in a June 11 comment to the Kyiv Post that the meeting did take place as part an official negotiation. One of Stavytsky’s lawyers, however, says on the tape that the meeting is “informal.”
“It was an official meeting,” Enin told the Kyiv Post on June 11. “The fact that one of the sides thinks it was unofficial doesn’t matter.”
In an official statement released later on June 11, Enin and Stryzhevska denied that the meeting had been informal or secret, and said it was initiated by Stavytsky.
Moreover, Enin and Stryzhevska were acting beyond their authority because the 2016 version of the Criminal Procedure Code did not give prosecutors the right to conclude plea bargains in corruption cases, Andriy Savin, a lawyer at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, told Slidstvo.info.
Enin and Stryzhevska met with Stavytsky in November 2016 in a hotel in Tel Aviv in Israel to negotiate over the charges against him, according to an audio recording of the meeting leaked to Slidstvo.Info and published on June 9.
The recording implies that the investigators could have conspired with the ex-minister, who has been wanted for embezzlement since 2014, in a backroom deal to soften the charges against him.
In the leaked audio, the officials were negotiating a possible change in the charges against Stavytsky. They warned him that some charges could result in a confiscation of his assets, a move seemingly aimed at helping him retain his assets.
The journalists behind the report argued that the secret negotiations might explain why the prosecutors sent Stavytsky’s case to court only this May, four years after they opened it.
The Prosecutor General’s Office responded on June 11 that the meeting was an official negotiation, and that the case against Stavytsky went to court with the initial charges: embezzlement, money laundering, and fraud.
The leaked audio is alleged to be a recording of the conversation among Stavytsky, his lawyers, and Enin and Stryzhevska, both of whom are still in office. A local rabbi was present at the meeting. Journalists assume he was serving as a mediator.
A documentary by Slidstvo.Info investigative news outlet looks into how fugitive former top officials, including ex-Energy Minister Eduard Stavytsky and ex-Finance Minister Yuriy Kolobov, try to get the charges against them dropped in Ukraine. (Slidstvo.Info)
Enin and Stryzhevsha say on the tape that Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko had authorized them to negotiate with Stavytsky.
In an interview with Slidstvo.Info that aired with the leaked audio, Enin — who did not yet know that the journalists had obtained the leaked recording — said that negotiations of a plea deal usually take place in a neutral place like a consulate. In the same interview, he refused to say whether he had met with Stavytsky.
On the tape, Stryzhevska is heard saying that Stavytsky could be convicted in absentia, which will be bad for Stavytsky and have “political” consequences for him, so it would be better to reach a deal. They never specify what kind of deal the prosecution wants.
The recording ends abruptly, only capturing a part of the conversation.
Slidstvo.Info has not revealed the source of the leaked audio, but said they checked the file to make sure it hadn’t been altered. To support the story, they also published smartphone footage showing Stavytsky, Stryzhevska and Enin entering a hotel lobby in Tel Aviv.
The journalists also released another tape – an audio recording of a call between a man sounding like Stavytsky and an unidentified mediator, whom he refers to as “Kolya.” They discuss the future meeting with Stryzhevska, and “Kolya” says he will bring and offer her “200” – presumably a bribe of $200,000. The man who sounds like Stavytsky approves the plan.
Stavytsky is accused of helping Yanukovych fraudulently obtain ownership of Mezhyhirya, a formerly state-owned 136-hectare luxury estate some 10 kilometers north of Kyiv, which Yanukovych turned into an opulent private residence.
After Yanukovych fled Ukraine on Feb. 22, 2014, the estate, which features a lake, a mock galleon and a private zoo, was opened to the public.
