Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova has urged against politicizing criminal proceedings involving former President Petro Poroshenko, noting that three cases involving him were closed last week.
“Last week, due to the lack of corpus delicti, three criminal proceedings were opened, opened on applications for unlawful, in the applicant’s opinion, actions of the mentioned person when appointing members of the High Council of Justice, of unlawful actions against judges of the Kyiv Regional Administrative Court and legitimacy of the appointment of the Prime Minister of Ukraine,” the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) said, citing Venediktova.
The press service said Venediktova had urged not to politicize the procedural actions in the proceedings, in which Poroshenko was notified of the suspicion.
“This proceeding was opened at the request of the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service. If such an official claims a crime, will it really be unpromising from the point of view of the investigation and the court? … If there are cases, then they must either be closed or be tried in court. Let the court decide. That is right, it’s democratic and it complies with the requirements of the rule of law. Therefore, there is no politics at all,” she said.
“If someone wants to make a caste of the untouchables and not hold any presidents or deputies accountable, let’s honestly report this, and then there will be no statements about political persecution where the law just has to work,” she said.
As for the request to change Poroshenko’s restraining measure, Venediktova said: “The people’s deputy said in front of cameras that he will show up [to testify to investigators] and that he was not hiding from anyone. On Monday he showed up in court, and so he did today. Besides, he is a politician after all, a people’s deputy, exercising his professional powers, and given that he reassured all of us with words and deeds, why not change the restraining measure so he can continue his political and professional activity and show up when summoned? This is logical, this is legal, this is a normal and right thing in a democracy. And this attests to the absence of politically motivated persecutions in our country.”
She also confirmed that, to avoid political manipulations her office petitioned for a hearing to be postponed due to the death of the father of the people’s deputy.
Yesterday it was reported that Pechersky district court in Kyiv reset the date of Poroshenko’s bail hearing for July 1.
As was reported earlier, Poroshenko is suspected of “issuing a clearly criminal decree in 2018, while serving as president of Ukraine, and thus inducing a military official, namely the chief of the Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service, to abuse his power and authority, that is, to knowingly commit actions clearly going beyond the rights and powers he was vested with, during a special period.”
