Read more in section
Editorial Conscience vote Three days ago at 21:46
Editorial Panic subsides Three days ago at 21:42
OP-ED Leaders unwilling to put nation first Three days ago at 21:35
OP-ED Does tobacco industry need to be saved? Three days ago at 21:26
OP-ED Nation hasn’t shaken Kuchma past Three days ago at 21:21
OP-ED To save lives, nation still needs to learn many lessons from flu epidemic Three days ago at 21:14
OP-ED Vox Populi with Kateryna Grushenko Three days ago at 21:12
OP-ED Lemkin: Holodomor ‘classic’ genocide Three days ago at 21:09
OP-ED How much does it cost to be a patriot? Three days ago at 11:33
Most popular Opinion
Bandits to jail
October 01, 2008 at 23:48 | EditorialLike a jack-in-the-box, Pavlo Lazarenko suddenly sprang up from the past. Stashed away for the past nine years, mainly in prison or under house detention in the United States, the former prime minister who looted the nation is suddenly hot news again.
President Victor Yushchenko’s administration said it will seek the extradition of the prime minister who tried to make government his personal fiefdom in 1996-1997. But the officials didn't sound convincing.
The Ukrainian media grabbed the bait eagerly, making a big deal out of it and predicting doomsday for Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who once had Lazarenko’s support in the lucrative scheme of purchasing Russian gas on the cheap and re-selling it for extortionist prices in 1990s. Tymoshenko’s company, United Energy Systems, got fabulously wealthy.
Lazarenko ended up convicted of money laundering, while Tymoshenko launched a spectacular political career, taking his old job as prime minister twice since 2004. She is now better known as the Orange Princess than the Gas Princess, as she was called in the old days.
The latest news about Lazarenko is from the federal appeals court in San Francisco, which on Sept. 26 upheld his conviction on eight counts of money laundering and conspiracy, while overturning his conviction on six other charges.
But what U.S. investigators uncovered in his case is just the tip of the iceberg. Much skullduggery and wrongdoing can be found. This is true of Lazarenko’s case, as well as of other top crimes Ukraine has yet to solve – murders of journalists and politicians, election rigging, the president’s poisoning, and corrupt privatization deals, to name just a few.
The resurrection of Lazarenko’s case is a welcome reminder of all these unsolved crimes and all those in hiding, such as ex-Naftogaz chief Ihor Bakai Lazarenko belongs in jail, in either Ukraine or the USA. So far, it seems that he is wanted in the motherland to pour more dirt on Tymoshenko, rather than the tardy pursuit of justice. Bandits belong in jail. If Ukrainian officials don’t have the guts to put them there, they should leave Lazarenko where he is and instead buy U.S.-bound one-way tickets for many more politicians.