You're reading: ​War veteran, Crimean prosecutor nominated for top anti-corruption job

The commission for choosing the anti-corruption prosecutor on Nov. 27 nominated Maxim Hryshchuk and Nazar Kholodnytsky for the job.

Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin is required to appoint one of them as the country’s top anti-corruption prosecutor.

The creation of the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office has been a key demand of Ukraine’s Western partners and is seen as a crucial effort in the creation of an efficient law enforcement system.

Ukrainian law enforcement agencies have been criticized for their failure to punish either incumbent or former corrupt officials.

Critics say the Prosecutor General’s Office and parliament have been dragging their feet on creating the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office since July, when a new prosecutorial law authorized them to do that.

Meanwhile, Shokin and President Petro Poroshenko have been accused of trying to prevent the commission from choosing an independent anti-corruption prosecutor. They deny the accusations.

Nine members of the commission voted for Hryshchuk, a rank-and-file prosecutor from Lviv. He is a war veteran who has defended Donetsk Airport from Russian-separatist forces.

Hryshchuk had also participated in the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.

Commission members described him as a man of integrity and a patriot with a “heightened sense of justice.”

Iosif Zisels, a commission member and vice president of the Congress of Ethnic Communities, praised Hryshchuk, saying he had not damaged his reputation by making a career under disgraced ex-President Viktor Yanukovych. His lack of experience as a top official of the Prosecutor General’s Office is an upside, since he is not part of the corrupt prosecutorial system, he argued.

Vitaly Shabunin, also a commission member and head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, agreed, saying that Ukraine had a lot of experienced prosecutors who were unable to deliver any results.

“If we had a right to select just one candidate, I would vote for (Hryshchuk),” he added.

Seven members voted for the other nominee, Kholodnytsky, who is first deputy prosecutor of Crimea. Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office of Crimea had to leave the peninsula after its annexation by Russia in 2014 and currently focuses on investigating the Kremlin’s crimes there.

Commission members praised him for his efforts in investigating crimes linked to Russia’s annexation of the peninsula.

Shabunin said that Kholodnytsky had demonstrated he was able to bring criminal cases to a conclusion and resist political pressure. Moreover, there are no problems in his property declaration, he added.

Surprisingly, two candidates who were seen as favorites – deputy prosecutor generals Vitaly Kasko and Roman Hovda – were rejected.

Shokin’s representatives at the commission have lobbied for Hovda, triggering a backlash from civil society.

Critics see Hovda as a representative of the old prosecutorial system that Shokin is trying to preserve.

He came into the limelight in June, when Odesa Oblast Governor Mikhail Saakashvili accused Hovda, then the region’s top prosecutor, of cracking down on businesses in Odesa Oblast and scaring investors. In September, Hovda was fired and appointed as a deputy of Shokin.

Shabunin lambasted Hovda because he supervised the Interior Ministry’s activities during crackdowns on EuroMaidan protestors in 2013-2014. He also accused him of failing to investigate corruption cases in the past.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian anti-corruption activists and some representatives of the U.S. and the European Union have promoted the candidacy of Kasko.

Kasko has been praised for persuading the E.U. to impose sanctions on Yanukovych allies, his knowledge on the recovery of stolen assets and his participation in the arrest of two top prosecutors on bribery charges in June.

“Kasko presents the best hope of the candidates to break the back of corruption in Ukraine,” said Mary Butler, a commission member and a top official of the U.S. Justice Department. “(Only he) has demonstrated his independence in taking on high-level corruption.”

She said that Kasko is seen as a person who “will not take orders.”

“I take this time to say in the strongest terms possible – it is not the time to select a person who will be perceived of as carrying on business as usual in Ukraine,” she argued. “It’s time for a bold step to break with the past.”

She said that Ukraine needed an anti-corruption prosecutor who “has the courage to follow the evidence to where it goes within the law and the courage not to take action if the law and the evidence don’t support it.”

Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].