You're reading: Ex-deputy prosecutor general: Lazarenko could be deported from US

Ex-deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine Mykola Obykhod has said that if former premier of Ukraine Pavlo Lazarenko returns to Ukraine, he will be arrested as a criminal case has now been opened against him.

“In the case of his voluntary return to Ukraine, the corresponding
services will wait for him [Lazarenko] at Boryspil airport to arrest
him,” he said at the press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday, Sept. 18.

Obykhod said Lazarenko could be deported from the United States if he fails to get a residential permit there.

“He could be deported in the country he came from, to Greece, or to
his native country, Ukraine,” the ex- deputy prosecutor general added.

Head of the Ukrainian Barometer sociological center Viktor
Nebozhenko, who was present at the press conference, said that Lazarenko
probably won’t come back to Ukraine after his release, but will live in
a neighboring country

“I don’t think that Lazarenko will dare to come to Ukraine, he could
settle down in any country neighboring Ukraine,” the expert said.

Nebozhenko said he was sure that one of the Lazarenko’s aims in
coming back to Ukraine would be to attempt to prove his innocence.

As reported, Lazarenko, who is serving a prison term in the Unites
States for fraud and money laundering, will be released on November 1,
2012.

Lazarenko was convicted in the United States of embezzling illegally
obtained funds and transferring them to foreign accounts in 1994-1999. A
Californian court sentenced Lazarenko to nine years in prison in August
2006. He remained in his apartment in San Francisco under house arrest
pending the consideration of the appeal against his conviction. In June
2011, Lazarenko’s custody was shortened by seven months, to January 11,
2012.