BRUSSELS — The European Union removed Andriy Klyuyev, a former head of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s presidential administration, from its sanctions list. But assets freeze on Yanukovych and 11 of his associates were extended by another year, according to several EU diplomats familiar with the issue.
Klyuyev was charged in Ukraine with unlawfully obstructing protests and abusing his power during a violent police crackdown on EuroMaidan Revolution demonstrators on Nov. 30, 2013, and with embezzling Hr 180 million, now $6.7 million, from the state budget. The popular uprising prompted Yanukovych to flee to his Moscow backers on Feb. 22, 2014.
He also faced investigation over allegedly embezzling Hr 1.5 billion, or $556 million, from a state bank. But he faced no charges in that case.
Sergii Gorbatuk, head of the in absentia investigations unit at the Prosecutor General’s Office, told the Kyiv Post that the investigation in the Hr 180 million case had been completed but a court refused to authorize a trial of Klyuyev in early 2018. Moreover, the Prosecutor General’s Office’s authority to prosecute any cases in absentia expired under the law in November 2018, he added.
The EuroMaidan case against Klyuyev cannot continue either because of the expiration of the prosecutor’s office’s authority to prosecute in absentia cases, Gorbatuk said.
Tetiana Shevchuk, a lawyer at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, said that the Klyuyev case, as well as other cases against Yanukovych associates, had not been properly investigated in Ukraine.
EU ambassadors made the decision on Klyuyev when they met in Brussels on Feb. 27.
One EU official said that the EU had no choice because Ukraine’s prosecutors did not provide evidence that Klyuyev had committed any crime in Ukraine. The move comes after a ruling by the EU’s general court in July which said that the bloc’s restrictive measures against Klyuyev for 2017–18 should be annulled.
Several diplomats from EU member states who are familiar with the talks but not authorized to speak on the record told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the lack of compelling evidence from Ukraine led to Klyuyev’s removal from the list.
Andriy’s brother, Serhiy Klyuyev, was removed from the same sanctions list last year.
Serhiy, who was a businessman and lawmaker from Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, was the nominal owner of Mezhyhirya, the lavish Yanukovych residence outside Kyiv that is now a museum.
The EU imposed asset freezes against Yanukovych and his inner circle shortly after the collapse of his government in February 2014.
The bloc accused Yanukovych and his collaborators of misappropriation of Ukraine’s state funds.
Apart from the former president, the restrictive measures still include his son, Oleksandr Yanukovych, and the former Prime Ministers Mykola Azarov and Serhiy Arbuzov.
