After nearly two years, all Ukraine’s prosecutors could do is produce one letter and that was good enough for the European Union to keep economic sanctions against five of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s ailles.
In 2014, just after Yanukovych fled power in the wake of the Euromaidan Revolution, then-Prosecutor General Oleh Makhnitshy, sent the European Union a letter stating that the ex-president and 17 of his allies were targets of a pre-trial investigation.
Brussels, in turn, initially froze the assets of Yanukovych, his two sons and 15 other associates on March 5, 2014 for one year on the strength of the correspondence.
On Jan. 28, however, the General Court of the EU removed sanctions imposed on five of the fugitive’s former allies for the period of March 2014-March 2015.
They are: former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and his son Oleksii Azarov, a former lawmaker, ex-First Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov, former lawmaker Serhiy Klyuyev, the brother of Yanukovych’s chief of staff, and former Energy Minister Eduard Stavytskyi.
EU can appeal
However, a separate asset freeze from last year is still in force for these officials through March 6 – except in the case of Oleksii Azarov, whose name was removed – as well as for 13 other former Yanukovych allies, including the disgraced ex-president.
The EU one-year blacklist of March 2015 “was made on the basis of updated information by the Ukrainian authorities,” EU foreign affairs and security policy spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said in an emailed comment.
Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaliy Kasko is now being sent to the EU capital to defend Ukraine’s case on extending the asset freezes ahead of the EU Council’s decision in March, said Serhiy Horbatiuk, head of the Prosecutor General’s special investigation department, at a briefing in Kyiv on Jan. 28.
His arrival will coincide with the EU considering an appeal of the judgment, which must be done within two months of the decision.
“The EU institutions are studying the ruling carefully,” Kocijancic said. “They will reflect on the options open to them and will, in due course, decide on any appropriate remedial action.”
Authorities in Kyiv maintain that Yanukovych in orchestra with his cohorts robbed the Ukrainian state of billions of dollars in 2010-2014. Current Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has alleged that Yanukovych, who fled to Russia, embezzled as much as $37 billion from state coffers.
Evidence lacking
But judges at the Luxembourg-based court said the 2014 asset freeze was based solely on the letter from Kyiv, which provided “no details concerning the matters specifically alleged against the five Ukrainians or the nature of their responsibility.”
“A person cannot be treated as being responsible for the misappropriation of funds solely on the ground that he is the subject of a preliminary investigation in a third country,” the General Court said in a news release.
Last year the EU dropped restrictions on former security service chiefs Oleksandr Yakymenko and Ihor Kalinin, as well as presidential adviser Andriy Portnov. Sanctions were also canceled for Viktor Yanukovych Jr. because he died. Subsequently added to the blacklist were former lawmaker and Donetsk Oblast businessman Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, Stavytskyi, former chief tax collector Oleksandr Klymenko and Arbuzov.
Then-Energy Minister Eduard Stavitskiy at a briefing in Kyiv on Dec. 18, 2013. In March 2014, 42 kilograms of gold and $4.8 million in cash was found stashed in his home after the EuroMaidan Revolution. (UNIAN)
Azarov pleased
Azarov’s spokesman in Europe, Michael Laubsch of Austrian law firm Lansky Ganzger & Partner, was nevertheless pleased with the EU court ruling, citing its wider implications.
“It is a signal that the European rule-of-law is working and the court didn’t make the same mistake as the EU Council made: political misuse instead of rule-of-law,” Laubsch said in an emailed comment. “The verdict is now a clear demand for the EU Council and Commission to review its sanctions policy, (by) not allowing pre-sentencing just on the basis of accusations from a third country without any legal proof.”
The EU court ruling comes as President Petro Poroshenko’s personal choice for top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, has been accused of repeatedly sabotaging efforts to reform the nation’s moribund law enforcement system, and of covering up graft.
At the Kyiv briefing Horbatiuk noted that sanctions still are in force for 17 Ukrainians thanks to “about 70 letters” that the General Prosecutor’s Office provided Brussels “not less than a dozen times” in 2015.
Samopomich lawmaker Yehor Soboliev, who chairs parliament’s anti-corruption committee, said the annulment of sanctions was the “result of an arrangement between the current and previous leadership of the state of ‘we keep robbing together, but only the proportions change’.”
“Petro Poroshenko together with Viktor Shokin proved to be reliable partners of Yanukovych’s gang,” Soboliev wrote on his Facebook page. “Our job as a society is to eradicate this partnership and provide just punishment for its participants.”
Presidential spokesman Svyatoslav Tseholko couldn’t be reached by phone and didn’t respond to a text messaged request for comment.
Poroshenko is scheduled to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Feb. 1 in Berlin, according to the president’s office.
