The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine intends to put chief editor of the Internet news website Strana.ua Ihor Huzhva, who asked for political asylum in Austria, on the international and national wanted lists, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has said.
“Undoubtedly, now we will seek… changing the pre-trial preventive measure for the search warrant, first national and then international one,” Lutsenko said at a briefing in Kyiv on Feb.2.
He also said that the Prosecutor General’s Office will seek the confiscation of the bail paid for releasing Huzhva from a pre-trial detention center.
“Huzhva ignominiously fled the judicial hearing…” Lutsenko said.
He also stressed that there is no political persecution of Huzhva, and the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Ukraine informed their Austrian counterparts about this.
As reported, Ihor Huzhva, editor-in-chief of the Strana.ua media outlet, fled to Vienna and asked the Austrian authorities for political asylum, motivating his actions by possible pressure on him on the part of the judiciary.
Huzhva was arrested in Kyiv on June 22, 2017. According to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, Huzhva demanded $10,000 in exchange for not publishing compromising materials against an incumbent politician.
On June 23, Dmytro Linko, a Verkhovna Rada deputy from the Radical Party faction, confirmed that Huzhva had demanded money from him.
Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office reported that Huzhva and his mediator had been detained on suspicion of large-scale extortion under Part 3, Article 189 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Huzhva was arrested for two months with an option to post Hr 544,000 bail. The bail was later posted, and he left the pre-trial detention center.
