The Prosecutor General’s Office on Aug. 6 revived a criminal case against top allies of ex-President Petro Poroshenko, summoning them to be questioned on Aug. 12.
According to the summonses, Valeria Gontareva, the former head of the National Bank of Ukraine; Kostyantyn Stetsenko, a top executive at investment bank ICU and Poroshenko’s Deputy Chief of Staff Oleksiy Filatov are to be interrogated as suspects in an embezzlement and money laundering case.
Separately, a case against ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky has been resumed as well, and he must also be questioned on Aug. 12 as a suspect.
All have denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
The move follows a long-running battle over criminal charges against the Poroshenko allies.
When Poroshenko was still in power, prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulyk issued notices of suspicion against the suspects in March as part of a criminal case against Yanukovych ally Serhiy Kurchenko.
However, they were then canceled by Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko. As Lutsenko’s three-year stint is approaching its end, now the case is apparently being resurrected.
Lutsenko said on Aug. 6 that he believed previous notices of suspicion for the Poroshenko allies had been issued in violation of procedure but the current ones were lawful.
Zlochevsky’s involvement in the case also gives it an international dimension.
In April, Lutsenko hinted that the Prosecutor General’s Office was investigating the activities of ex-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, who used to be a member of Zlochevsky’s oil and gas company Burisma’s board of directors. Later Lutsenko backtracked, claiming that prosecutors did not suspect Biden and his son of any wrongdoing.
Kulyk’s move
Kulyk told the Kyiv Post that he was the one who had posted the new summonses for Aug. 12 on the site of the prosecutor’s office.
Gontareva, who is based in London, told the Kyiv Post that she believed the case to be fake and challenged prosecutors to come to London and question her there.
The other suspects did not respond to requests on whether they would come to the questioning.
Before the first round of the presidential election on March 31, Kulyk – then a deputy head of the international legal cooperation department of Lutsenko’s agency and head of the department’s prosecution unit – issued notices of suspicion against Gontareva, Stetsenko, Filatov and Zlochevsky. In March he also charged Poroshenko’s former Chief of Staff Borys Lozhkin, who was not summoned by the Prosecutor General’s Office for Aug. 12 for unknown reasons.
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.
Sergii Gorbatuk, head of the in absentia cases unit at the Prosecutor General’s Office, and Vitaly Tytych, ex-coordinator of the Public Integrity Council, told the Kyiv Post, that the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office had no right to cancel notices of suspicion issued by prosecutors.
Anti-corruption activists, including Reanimation Package of Reforms expert Oleksandr Lemenov, said Sargan’s statement indicated that Lutsenko wanted to save the allies of his political boss Poroshenko.
Political game?
Kulyk alleged in April that Poroshenko had illegally interfered in the case against his allies.
Poroshenko denied the accusations, claiming 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 Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Both Zelensky and Kolomoisky have denied being political allies.
After Poroshenko lost his re-election bid on April 21, the Prosecutor General’s Office again summoned the Poroshenko allies to be questioned and charged on April 23 and April 25.
However, they did not come to the questioning, and Lutsenko liquidated Kulyk’s unit and said he would not authorize the charges as “politically motivated.”
Substance of charges
Gontareva and Stetsenko were 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 were 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 was also planning to charge Zlochevsky with laundering $36 million.
All of the suspects have previously denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
