You're reading: Court rejects arrest warrants for officials detained during Cabinet meeting

Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court on March 27 ruled not to issue arrest warrants for Serhiy Bochkovsky, former head of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, and his former first deputy Vasyl Stoyetsky in a high-profile corruption case.

The two high-ranking officials were detained on March 25 during a Cabinet meeting that was broadcast live on television on suspicion of procuring fuel for the agency at inflated prices through offshore companies they allegedly control.

The government portrayed the arrests as part of a genuine crackdown on corruption. Skeptics dismissed it as a publicity stunt that wouldn’t lead to successful prosecution, while some critics doubted the legitimacy of the arrests.

Prosecutor Andriy Shevchenko had revoked his request to put them under arrest. He told journalists on March 27 that there was no “direct evidence” proving that Bochkovsky committed a crime.

Unless arrest warrants are issued later, Bochkovsky and Stoyetsky will be released at about 12 p.m. on March 28.

Anton Gerashchenko, a lawmaker from the People’s Front party and a former advisor to the interior minister, wrote on Facebook that the case will be transferred to another prosecutor, citing a conversation he had with Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who said he has also spoken with Shokin, said in a Facebook post that the request for the officials’ arrest had been revoked because the Prosecutor General’s Office needed to add more charges.

Another motion to place them under arrest will be submitted to a court on the morning of March 28, Avakov added.They are currently suspected of illegally opening foreign currency accounts abroad.

“Neither Bochkovsky nor Stoyetsky have a chance to be released by the Prosecutor General’s Office and to have charges dropped against them,”Avakov said. “Proofs of their corrupt activities are persuasive.”

Daryna Kalenyuk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a non-profit group in Kyiv, dismissed Bochkovsky’s arrest as a show.“

“(The court didn’t authorize his arrest) because he was detained as part of a public relations stunt,” she told the Kyiv Post. “I think this show will go on, and they’ll try to find a scapegoat. Our judges are not saints but media pressure and political pressure on judges is not the right way to solve such problems.

Earlier this week Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s management board, doubted the legitimacy of Bochkovsky’s detention on March 25. He said that the police cannot detain suspects without a judge’s approval unless they are caught red-handed or if evidence implicating a suspect emerges immediately after a crime is committed.

Meanwhile, Zoryan Shkiryak, who replaced Bochkovsky as head of the State Emergency Service, said on March 27 that he had signed off on the dismissal of about 300 employees of the service and announced the beginning of “total lustration” there.

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