Interpol has removed Yuriy Ivaniushchenko, an ex-lawmaker and close ally of Ukraine’s ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych, from its list of wanted persons.
Ivaniushchenko was taken off the Interpol wanted list after Ukrainian courts cancelled a warrant for his arrest on charges of embezzlement and abuse of office and closed his case earlier in the year, Ukrainian lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko said at a press conference on June 7.
Ivaniushchenko had been suspected of grand-scale theft of $75.2 million and, additionally, he was suspected of embezzling Hr 170 million ($6.8 million) – the sum that Ukraine received from selling quotas for greenhouse-gas emissions to Japan in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol.
The ex-lawmaker and businessman, who hasn’t been seen in Ukraine since December 2014, can now travel freely for the first time in 15 months. Interpol is still obliged to inform Ukrainian authorities when the ex-lawmaker crosses a border, but he will not be arrested. His whereabouts are not known.
Leshchenko condemned the actions of the Ukrainian judges who canceled the Ukrainian arrest warrant, and said that such misconduct couldn’t take place without the approval of top officials, including President Petro Poroshenko.
“It’s not just shameful, it’s…there are no words,”Leshchenko said.
According to Leshchenko, Ivaniushchenko now will be able to join his family living in Monaco.
The Prosecutor General’s Office opened an investigation and issued an arrest warrant for Ivaniushchenko in January 2015 on suspicion of embezzlement.
However, Solomyanskiy District Court in Kyiv in January required prosecutors to close the investigation against Ivaniushchenko, citing inactivity of investigators. Prosecutors appealed but lost.
Nevertheless, on June 7, the Prosecutor General’s Office said that it was still investigating Ivaniushchenko and “would not kill” the investigation.
But such determination has come too late, according to the Head of Anti-Corruption Action Center Vitaliy Shabunin.
“The case is closed, period,” he said. “And now the Prosecutor General’s Office is making things up.”
He said that Ivaniushchenko’s case was “the most obvious one” among the cases of former Yanukovych allies.
“One needed to try really hard to kill this case,” Shabunin said. “I agree with Leshchenko: This is connivance.”
The news that Ivaniushchenko was no longer wanted by Interpol came a week after Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko on May 30 promised to revive the investigation into the Ivaniushchenko case. However, by then, the case had already been closed for some time.
The case against Ivaniushchenko was opened under former Prosecutor General Vitaliy Yarema. Back in 2015, Yarema claimed Ivaniushchenko’s bank accounts, containing $100 million, were frozen in Switzerland and the Baltic States due to the investigation. Yarema said he hoped that as soon as Ivaniushchenko was arrested, the money would be returned to the Ukrainian budget.
Mykola Chaus, a judge of Kyiv’s Dniprovsky District Court, cancelled Ivaniushchenko’s arrest warrant on April 1. Chaus is famous for his rulings in another case – the case of Hennady Korban, leader of the Ukrop party and ally of oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.
Leshchenko claims that the decisions in both cases must have been orchestrated by Ukraine’s top officials.
Chaus couldn’t be reached for comments through Dniprovsky Court.
The Prosecutor General’s Office attempted to appeal against the verdict. However, Kyiv Court of Appeal on April 6 refused to open the appeal case against the Chaus’s decision.
The status of Ivaniushchenko on the Interpol list was changed on April19, Vasyl Nevolia, the head of Ukraine’s Interpol bureau, told Leshchenko in an official response to the Ukrainian lawmaker.
Leshenko said the situation was outrageous.
“There are numerous allies among the current authorities who are ready to take part in a bandits’ plot in exchange for financial rewards,” he said.
Leshchenko said that he did not know for sure “through which channel Ivaniushchenko solved his problem,” adding that the “situation has to be investigated,” and he would cooperate in this with the law enforcement bodies.
Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected]
