Discredited Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin on March 29 fired his reformist deputy Davit Sakvarelidze, hours before Shokin himself was dismissed by parliament.
Shokin said in the document on the firing of Sakvarelidze that the deputy prosecutor general, who was also the chief prosecutor of Odesa Oblast, had broken the law
by attending a rally, and had also violated ethical principles.
Meanwhile, Vladyslav Kutsenko, a spokesman for the Prosecutor General’s Office, said that Alexander Modebadze, a
prosecutor appointed by Sakvarelidze in Odesa Oblast, had been arrested on
suspicion of bribery.
Critics see the case as fabricated and part of the
political vendetta by Shokin and and his first deputy Yury Sevruk against Sakvarelidze’s team.
The moves follow a long-simmering conflict between Sakvarelidze and
Shokin that boiled over in recent weeks.
Sakvarelidze has argued that Shokin and his deputies Yury Sevruk and Yury Stolyarchuk
have been sabotaging efforts to prosecute top prosecutors Oleksandr Korniyets
and Volodymyr Shapakin on bribery charges and cleanse the prosecutor’s office
of corrupt and incompetent officials.
Last week Sakvarelidze attended a rally against Shokin’s firing of prosecutors — subordinates of Sakvarelidze — who were in charge of graft cases
against other prosecutors.
Sakvarelidze has also claimed that Shokin could be involved in the alleged
corruption schemes of Korniyets and Shapakin, saying a copy of Shokin’s passport and his land
registration documents had been found in Korniyets’ house.
The Prosecutor General’s Office has denied all of Sakvarelidze’s allegations.
Sakvarelidze commented on his dismissal at a news briefing on March 29.
“What exactly is their prosecutorial ethics?” Sakvarelidze said. “It’s theft, corruption and covering
up for each other’s crimes.”
He argued that his team was “violating the ethics code of a corrupt mafia,” and that “there’s a lot of honest people (at the prosecutor’s office)
but this system is destroying them.”
Sakvarelidze also said that his team had “challenged the system
and started identifying corrupt officials in the prosecution service at all
levels regardless of their ranks and connections.”
“The attack on me and my team means that the ruling
elite in Ukraine doesn’t need any real reforms,” he added. “This is an attempt
to remove those who are ready to fight corruption every day.”
Sakvarelidze also lambasted the Verkhovna Rada members
who signed a letter calling for his resignation.
He described one of them – Serhiy Kivalov, an ally of ex-President
Viktor Yanukovych – as an apologist for the Kremlin; Oleksandr Presman, another
ex-Yanukovych ally, as “one of the major smugglers in Ukraine,” and Dmytro
Golubov, a lawmaker from the Poroshenko Bloc who has been investigated by the
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations, as “a well known international hacker
and con man.” They deny the accusations.
Sakvarelidze said he did not know whether President Petro Poroshenko had
authorized his dismissal, though two days ago the president had asked him whether
he would resign.
He said he had met Poroshenko again on March
29, and that the president claimed he had not authorized his dismissal.
Mustafa Nayyem and Serhiy Leshchenko, critical lawmakers from the Poroshenko Bloc, said the president had likely given his permission for Sakvarelidze’s firing.
Sakvarelidze said members of his team were being blackmailed and
threatened that drugs would be planted in their apartments and that their family
members would be imprisoned.
“They’ve shown them a car trunk full of draft
notices of suspicion, and search warrants,” Sakvarelidze said.
Yanis Simonov, the prosecutor in charge of the Korniyets-Shapakin case, “alone
faces a (prosecutorial) system that is breaking everything on its way and is
brazenly spitting in the face of society,” he added.
Sakvarelidze said that he was ready to help any “internal
revolutions and Maidans” in law enforcement.
He added he would remain in Ukraine, meet the challenge
posed by the corrupt prosecutorial system and “fight until the end.”
Another reformer, ex-Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaly
Kasko, also spoke at the briefing. Like Sakvarelidze, he has clashed with
Shokin and accused him of corruption and derailing reform.
Kasko said Shokin had taken revenge by launching five
criminal cases against him.
Earlier this month a court issued an order to
seize Kasko’s apartment as part of a fraud case opened by the Prosecutor
General’s Office against him.
Kasko said that Shokin had had to sign a motion to
seize the apartment himself because apparently there were no lower-rank prosecutors
willing to carry out “the illegal order.”
“What we have now is revenge against all people who
tried to change at least something in Ukraine’s prosecution service to make it independent, corruption-free and consistent with European standards,” he
said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can
be reached at [email protected]
