Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko will not authorize corruption charges for top allies of President Petro Poroshenko until there is enough evidence to support them.
“We have no facts that could give us a notice of suspicion (for the Poroshenko allies),” Lutsenko told the Kyiv Post on May 6 on the sidelines of the Kyiv Jewish Forum.
The situation reflects political infighting and intrigues at the Prosecutor General’s Office in the wake of the April 21 presidential election, in which Poroshenko lost to comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
In March, prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulik — then a deputy head of the international legal cooperation department of Lutsenko’s agency and head of the department’s prosecution unit — brought embezzlement and money laundering charges against a series of individuals with close ties to the president: Valeria Gontareva, the former head of the National Bank of Ukraine; Kostyantyn Stetsenko, a top executive at investment bank ICU; Poroshenko’s former Chief of Staff Borys Lozhkin and Poroshenko’s Deputy Chief of Staff Oleksiy Filatov.
However, Lutsenko’s spokeswoman Larysa Sargan said in March that the leadership of her agency believed the notices of suspicion to be unlawful and invalid. Lutsenko echoed that sentiment on May 6, saying the prosecutor issued the notices as a politically motivated move against the outgoing president.
Kulik told the Kyiv Post that the legal deadline for bringing charges against the Poroshenko allies and putting them on a wanted list was due to expire in May.
“I think that the investigative and prosecution group will do everything to check the activity of Mr. Kulik. And if they receive some facts, Mr. Lozhkin could be (given a notice of) suspicion,” Lutsenko told the Kyiv Post. “It is possible for any person in this country. But politically motivated prosecution is prohibited.”
Just a day after Ukraine’s April 21 presidential run-off election, in which Zelenskiy defeated Poroshenko, the Prosecutor General’s Office issued summonses to the Poroshenko allies. The suspects were to be questioned and charged on April 23 and April 25.
However, Filatov and Lozhkin said that they would not go to the questioning, arguing that the publication of the summonses through the internet was illegal. Gontareva, who lives in London, also said she would not come, while Stetsenko declined to comment.
Kulik told the Kyiv Post that he had been expelled from the investigative group behind the charges and that Lutsenko later disbanded the two units that issued the charges. In this way, he alleged, Lutsenko was taking revenge for the notices of suspicion being issued against Poroshenko’s allies.
“Deputy Prosecutor General Mr. (Eugene) Enin resigned and he was the chief of all the groups (investigating the Poroshenko allies), so it is impossible to have a group without a chief,” Lutsenko told the Kyiv Post in English. “So all these prosecutors and investigators were going to another department with another deputy prosecutor.”
On April 25, Enin said that he had resigned due to the scandal over the charges against the Poroshenko allies, arguing that the case is politicized.
Previously, on April 11, Kulik alleged that Poroshenko had illegally interfered in the case against his allies.
Poroshenko denied the accusations that same day. He claimed that Kulik had gone to Israel, where oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky lives, and agreed to take part in the oligarch’s political activities. Kolomoisky and Kulik denied meeting one another.
Kolomoisky has been suspected of secretly backing President-elect Zelenskiy, and Zelenskiy’s television shows air on the oligarch’s 1+1 television channel. Both the president-elect and Kolomoisky deny being political allies.
Gontareva and Stetsenko are expected to be charged with aiding organized crime and complicity in embezzling Hr 2 billion ($74 million) by buying and selling government bonds.
Gontareva, Lozhkin and Filatov are also expected to be charged with complicity in laundering over $440 million through the 2013 sale of UMH, a major international media company founded by Lozhkin.
The Prosecutor General’s Office is also planning to charge ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych’s ecology minister, Mykola Zlochevsky, with laundering $36 million.
All of the suspects have previously denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
Lozhkin currently serves as the president of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, the organizer of the Kyiv Jewish Forum, which is taking place from May 5–7. Lutsenko attended the forum to participate in a panel discussion about defending minority rights in Ukraine.
