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A member of the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors has prepared a report confirming that Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky violated prosecutorial ethics and recommending that he be reprimanded, according to leaked fragments of a report published by the Ukrainska Pravda online newspaper.
The report is seen by anti-corruption activists as an attempt to save Kholodnytsky as a puppet of the authorities instead of firing him. Kholodnytsky’s office and the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors did not respond to requests for comment.
Previously Kholodnytsky denied being influenced by the Presidential Administration.
In April the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine released recordings of Kholodnytsky pressuring prosecutors and judges to stop cases against high-profile suspects and tipping off other suspects about planned searches.
Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko asked the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors to consider firing Kholodnytsky. NABU Chief Artem Sytnyk also asked the Prosecutor General’s Office to bring charges against Kholodnytsky, but they have not done so.
The leaked report says that the complaint sent by Sytnyk and Lutsenko to the commission “has good grounds and is fully confirmed by evidence.”
But Oleksandr Kovalchuk, a member of the commission who prepared the report, claimed that the law does not stipulate firing the chief anti-corruption prosecutor for violating prosecutorial ethics.
Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, accused Kovalchuk of manipulating the law. He said that while the law does not explicitly envisage stripping him of the administrative position of chief anti-corruption prosecutor per se, according to the law he can be fired from the Prosecutor General’s Office for such violations, and would thus lose his administrative position automatically.
The report must be considered by the commission no earlier than in 10 days after Kholodnytsky receives the report. After that, the issue of punishing Kholodnytsky will be considered by the Council of Prosecutors and Lutsenko.
Meanwhile, a source at the NABU who was not authorized to speak to the press told the Kyiv Post on condition of anonymity that Kholodnytsky is blocking notices of suspicion for Yaroslav Dubnevych and Bohdan Dubnevych, lawmakers from the pro-presidential Bloc of Petro Poroshenko.
The Dubnevych brothers are being investigated over alleged embezzlement while making equipment supplies from their KRT Group to Ukraine’s state railway monopoly Ukrzaliznytsya.
In March Sytnyk directly accused Kholodnytsky of sabotaging cases involving Ukrzaliznytsya. In May, priest Stepan Sus published a photo of Kholodnytsky and Bohdan Dubnevych standing next to each other in a church in Lviv.
The Dubnevych brothers are also being investigated by the NABU over allegedly embezzling natural gas worth Hr 1.4 billion at state oil and gas monopoly Naftogaz Ukriany.
Yaroslav Dubnevych denied the accusations of corruption.
“I’m not aware of criminal cases in which I’m being investigated,” Dubnevych told the Kyiv Post. “Moreover, I have official responses from the NABU, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the National Police that confirm this. I received such responses in connection with the publication of this fake and false information in certain media.”
In 2017, Kholodnytsky’s office also instructed the NABU to close its investigation into the 2016 deal between Ukrzaliznytsya and WOG Aero Jet. Ukrzaliznytsya bought fuel from WOG Aero Jet for Hr 115 million – a price that the NABU believes was inflated. The company, which belongs to the family of the late lawmaker and businessman Ihor Yeremeyev, has denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
The tapes published by the NABU got Kholodnytsky into trouble with U.S. authorities, and recently his U.S. visa was canceled, according to sources interviewed by the Kyiv Post and other media. The U.S. Embassy to Ukraine said the information on the visa was classified, while the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment.
On the tapes, Kholodnytsky was recorded obstructing corruption cases against Odesa Mayor Hennady Trukhanov; Natalia Korchak, the former head of the National Agency for Preventing Corruption, People’s Front lawmaker Georgii Logvynskyi, and other powerful figures.
Kholodnytsky has blocked all NABU cases since the tapes were released, Shabinin said.
The NABU source told the Kyiv Post that Kholodnytsky is now obstructing the NABU’s activities even more than ever.
Previously Kholodnytsky had repeatedly denied sabotaging NABU cases and recurring accusations that he is dependent on President Petro Poroshenko.
“Apparently Poroshenko gave an order to save him,” the NABU source said. “I’m 100 percent sure that someone has given Kholodnytsky some guarantees, because over the past two weeks he’s gone crazy.”
