Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova has said there is no working communication between detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and prosecutors of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) in the Rotterdam+ case and announced the replacement of the senior of prosecutors’ team in this criminal proceeding.
“There is one criminal proceeding, during the investigation of which I have to draw attention to the complete lack of effective working communication between the NABU detectives and the SAPO prosecutors […] This is the so-called ‘R+ case,'” the prosecutor general said on her Facebook page on May 5.
She said that three times the SAPO prosecutor made a decision to close the proceedings and three times his decisions were overturned.
“Three times, both the NABU detectives and the party that received the status of the injured one in the case appealed to HACC [High Anti-Corruption Court] so that the competent court found grounds for challenging the SAPO prosecutor, but such grounds were not revealed and the challenge was refused. The situation is difficult from a purely criminal procedural point of view,” the prosecutor general said.
At the same time, Venediktova said that she did not intend to “ignore the status of this case and the degree of its sensitivity for civil society.”
“Three times to close the case and three times to get the cancellation of the ruling to close is a lot. The issue is so important and resonant that there is no room for procedural mistakes. This morning I made a decision to replace the senior of prosecutors’ team in the R+ criminal proceedings,” she said.
