The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office has said that at present there is no evidence of MPs being involved in a child sex abuse scandal.
"As of today, the investigation hasn’t proved the involvement [of MPs] and, moreover, there is no evidence that can give reasons to open a criminal case against well-known MPs," Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaliy Schotkin said at a press conference on Thursday, July 22.
He noted that a forensic medical examination had been conducted at the initiative of the mother of the allegedly abused children. But the investigation needs to conduct additional examinations of the children, he said.
"The forensic doctor still has to examine children so as to confirm the examination, but the mother strongly prohibits this," Schotkin noted.
Thus, the investigation has been forced to conduct the examination using earlier-received medical documentation.
"This examination raised even more questions for the mother and her children from us," he said.
"But taking into account that at present there is no mutual understanding between the mother and the investigator, this issue has been stalled in court. But as far as possible we are trying to find ways to resolve the problem," he said.
As reported, Regions Party MP Vadym Kolesnichenko said on October 13 last year that children had been raped at the Artek international children’s center, and asked law enforcement agencies to prevent the closure of this criminal case. A criminal case on child sex abuse at Artek was opened.
Yuriy Lutsenko, the Interior Minister at that time, said that police had charged Dmytro Poliukhovych, the stepfather of two raped children. He also said that evidence was available to the ministry that a number of Ukrainian MPs were involved in this case.
On October 15-16, a number of Ukrainian newspapers published reports pointing to the surnames of BYT MPs allegedly involved in child sex abuse – Serhiy Teriokhin, Viktor Ukolov and Ruslan Bohdan. All of them denied being involved in the case.
The management of Artek also rebuffed allegations of sexual molestation of children at the children’s center.
Moreover, the media reported that a priest of the Uman Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) was also involved in the child sex abuse scandal.
