You're reading: Activists say prosecutor general, who has failed to battle corruption, continues to sabotage change

Civic activists are continuing their campaign against Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, saying the top prosecutor and his first deputy, Yury Sevruk, are sabotaging reform of an office that has failed to prosecute top-level crime and corruption.

Sevruk has lashed out at a test system organized by the reformist Deputy Prosecutor General Davit Sakvarelidze to recruit new prosecutors in what critics say is an effort to derail Sakvarelidze’s restructuring of the ineffective and historically politically subservient office.

Sevruk argues that the tests don’t comply with proper standards.

Civic activists also say that Shokin had put another reform-minded official, Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaly Kasko, in charge of corruption cases against top officials but last week effectively rendered him powerless by giving procedural oversight over such cases to Deputy Prosecutor General Oleh Zalisko. They accuse Zalisko of sabotaging investigations against allies of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.

Shokin has attributed the reshuffle to a desire to streamline the office’s work.

The office did not respond to an e-mailed request, while Andrei Demartino, a spokesman for the office, was not available by phone.

“Investigators can’t do anything in major criminal investigations without their procedural overseer’s permission,” Vitaly Shabunin, head of the executive board of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, said at a news conference on Aug. 17. “The procedural overseer makes all principal decisions during the investigation: from seizing documents to arresting a suspect.”

Zalisko headed the main investigative department of the Prosecutor General’s Office in August-December 2014, when critics say all major corruption cases were stalled.

Specifically, Zalisko dragged his feet on the investigation against Yury Ivanyushchenko, a Yanukovych ally and suspected mafia boss accused of organizing pro-government thugs who attacked protesters during the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution, Shabunin said.

Yegor Sobolev, head of the Verkhovna Rada’s anti-corruption committee, said at the news conference that giving oversight powers to Zalisko had been aimed at keeping existing corrupt schemes at the Prosecutor General’s Office.

“Why else would he transfer powers from Kasko, an efficient employee, to Zalisko, an inefficient one?” Sobolev said. “In fact, Shokin used the reform of the prosecutor’s office to appoint his protégés to necessary posts in order to fully control corruption investigations against top officials.”

Moreover, the function of representing the Prosecutor General’s Office in court and recovering stolen assets, including those of Yanukovych allies, was transferred from Kasko to Zalisko, Daryna Kalenyuk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, told the Kyiv Post by phone.

In what critics see as another blow against reformist prosecutors, earlier this month Sevruk lambasted the testing system organized by Sakvarelidze to hire new prosecutors as part of the office’s human resources reform.

Sevruk claimed that test developers had been chosen in a non-transparent way. The tests were given a low rating by the National Prosecutorial Academy, and the Prosecutor General’s Office has no official contracts with the test developers, he argued.

Sevruk’s opponents dismiss his claims, saying the tests were prepared by a team that includes seven highly qualified specialists with a Ph.D. degree in law.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development also took part in the preparation of the tests.

The U.S. embassy, which is providing part of the funding for the prosecutorial reform, said on Aug. 12 that the tests complied with all international standards.

Critics say that the top officials of the National Prosecutorial Academy, which lambasted the tests, were allies of Yanukovych’s prosecutor general Viktor Pshonka.

“This is likely a last-ditch effort by blue-uniformed thieves to keep their jobs by sabotaging the new (prosecutorial) law’s implementation and emasculating it,” Karl Volokh, an activist of the Civic Lustration Committee, said in a Facebook post on Aug. 10. “That’s why prosecutors of different ranks are bombarding Shokin with complaints that Sakvarelidze’s tests are ‘incorrect.’ That’s the least they can do when they risk losing their cushy jobs.”

The battle between reformist prosecutors and the old guard at the office has been raging since Sakvarelidze and Kasko spearheaded the arrest of two top prosecutors over bribery in early July.

Sakvarelidze and Kasko said later that the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office had been pressuring them to halt the bribery case by starting two criminal cases against them and their subordinates.

Mustafa Nayyem wrote then that the prosecutors accused of bribery were protégés of Shokin and his then-first deputy Volodymyr Huzyr, who subsequently resigned amid the public uproar.

Volokh and Shabunin say that Sevruk is Huzyr’s protégé.

Critics have been pushing for Shokin’s dismissal during the scandal.

Sobolev said on Aug. 17 that 109 signatures had been collected for firing the prosecutor general, while 150 are necessary to put the issue on parliament’s agenda.

Shokin has been accused of stalling major corruption cases, and so have his predecessors.Oleh Makhnitsky, who was prosecutor general in February-June 2014, has been criticized for failing to prosecute Yanukovych allies Dmytro Firtash, Serhiy Lyovochkin and Yury Boiko.

Serhiy Leshchenko, a lawmaker from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, wrote on Facebook earlier in August that Firtash, Lyovochkin and Boiko could have avoided being included in European Union sanction lists after the EuroMaidan Revolution due to the alleged protection of Makhnitsky, who had been delegated by the nationalist Svoboda Party.

Kryvetsky, another Svoboda heavyweight, used to be a business partner of Firtash, Leshchenko wrote. Makhnitsky and his former spokesman Vasyl Zorya were not available for comment, while Svoboda’s press office could not immediately comment.

Howevev, Oleksandr Aronets, a Svoboda activist, wrote on Facebook on Aug. 14 that Makhnitsky, who is no longer a member of the party, had betrayed Svoboda during his stint as prosecutor general. He added that Makhnitsky’s successor Vitaly Yarema and Shokin also shared responsibility for failing to prosecute corruption cases.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at reaganx84@gmail and Veronika Melkozerova can be reached [email protected].