Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova has blocked and derailed a bribery case against Pavlo Khalimon, a lawmaker from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, according to a Sept. 30 investigation by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s investigative unit, Schemes.
Venediktova, a staunch loyalist of Zelensky, was appointed as prosecutor general in March. She did not respond to a request for comment.
Zelensky and his party said she had been appointed with a mandate to bring top corrupt officials to justice. Instead, she has failed to successfully prosecute corrupt officials from ex-President Petro Poroshenko’s era and blocked charges against several incumbent officials, including the infamous Judge Pavlo Vovk and Servant of the People lawmaker Oleksandr Yurchenko.
The case of Khalimon, the most recent lawmaker from Servant of the People party implicated in corruption, also demonstrated Venediktova’s reluctance to go after people from Zelensky’s party, according to the investigation.
Khalimon and his business partner Serhiy Selyutin have proposed helping businessman Oleh Dmytrenko with law enforcers and securing favorable conditions for his agribusiness in exchange for a Hr 40 million bribe, according to Schemes. Dmytrenko has recorded his conversations with Khalimon and Seltyutin on audio and shared them with journalists.
Khalimon confirmed having talked to Dmytrenko but denied demanding any bribes from him. His partner Selyutin could not be reached for comment.
“He has regularly addressed me, asked for my help and asked me not to interfere in this process (Dmytrenko’s legal problems) so that I don’t publish this information,” Khalimon told Schemes. “I have asked law enforcement agencies to prosecute him and his CEO, and he proposed giving a bribe to me.”
Dmytrenko, a former lawmaker from ex-President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, has founded agribusiness firm Batkivshchyna. Currently, the company is owned by his wife and father.
Khalimon, a deputy head of Zelensky’s faction in parliament and head of the Servant of the People’s Chernihiv branch, also ran an agribusiness before he became a lawmaker.
NABU investigation
On July 21, Dmytrenko filed a complaint with NABU, saying that Khalimon and Selyutin had demanded a bribe from him. On the next day, NABU applied to Venediktova to open a criminal case that would allow them to investigate the charges.
However, Venediktova refused to open a case on July 23, claiming that there was not enough evidence of a crime.
Venediktova agreed to authorize a criminal case against Khalimon only on Sept. 24 – after Khalimon found out about the Schemes investigation but before it was published. The NABU said, however, that it had no information on the case having been opened.
According to the Schemes’ investigation, Venediktova’s actions made it impossible to successfully investigate Khalimon. Because she opened the case when he already knew that accusations against him are going to be made public, it will be impossible to catch him red-handed receiving a bribe, which in the end means he likely won’t be prosecuted.
Recordings
Dmytrenko said that he was supposed to give Khalimon a Hr 30 million bribe in three to five days and later another Hr 10 million after the harvest is collected. Khalimon said “30+10” in the recordings in an apparent reference to the scheme.
Dmytrenko also said that Khalimon had proposed that Dmytrenko subsequently give him 50 percent of his income in exchange for Khalimon creating “favorable conditions” in cooperation with state firm Ivkivtsi.
“Let’s make it 50-50,” Khalimon said in the recordings.
Dmytrenko also said that Khalimon and Selyutin had referred to the money that he was supposed to give them as “documents” to prevent being exposed.
“Give us just a small package of documents,” Selyutin told Dmytrenko.
Controversial accuser
Dmytrenko has also been involved in controversies.
His firm Batkivshchyna received Hr 2.5 million in state subsidies when Dmytrenko was a member of the Rada’s agricultural policy committee.
Prosecutors had previously investigated his agricultural company Batkivshchyna in an embezzlement case. According to the investigators, state firm Ivkivtsi in Chernihiv Oblast was planning to transfer harvest from its farmland to Batkivshchyna at the cost price, causing losses to the state. The state company earns money by leasing its farmland to private agribusinesses.
Currently Dmytrenko is running for a seat on the city council of Pryluky in Chernihiv Oblast on the list of Za Maibutne, a party run by Ihor Palytsya, an ally of billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky.
Venediktova accused of sabotage before
This is not the first case when Venediktova is accused of blocking a case against a Zelensky party lawmaker.
On Sept. 15, NABU announced a major bribery case against Oleksandr Yurchenko, a lawmaker from the Servant of the People party.
Venediktova initially blocked the case against him, claiming there wasn’t enough evidence to press charges. Soon, she gave in to public pressure and authorized the charges on Sept. 17.
Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova leaves a press briefing in her office in Kyiv on June 18, 2020. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, said then that the passage of the law formally abolishing Verkhovna Rada members’ immunity from prosecution in 2019 was a meaningless ploy because a loyalist prosecutor general would always be able to block charges against lawmakers.
Under the law passed by Zelensky, charges against Verkhovna Rada members, as well as the opening of criminal cases, searches and other investigative actions regarding them cannot take place without the prosecutor general’s approval. Previously, other prosecutors could authorize such actions as well.
Editor’s Note: This report is part of the Investigative Hub project, within which the Kyiv Post team monitors investigative reports in the Ukrainian media and brings them to the English-speaking audience. The project is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy.
