The ecocide case against ex-Deputy Prosecutor General Anatoly Danylenko in connection with a fire at an oil depot near Kyiv has been closed, Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin said on June 19.
The move followed the June 18 dismissal of
State Security Service Chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, who has accused Danylenko
of covering up alleged violations at oil firm BRSM-Nafta, which owns the oil
depot, and co-owning it. The company denies any links.
Some critics attribute Nalyvaichenko’s sacking
as SBU chief to his criticism of prosecutors.
His dismissal also triggered an uproar over
alleged horse-trading at the Verkhovna Rada that led to it and allegations that
either Nalyvaichenko or President Petro Poroshenko is linked to exiled tycoon
Dmytro Firtash. Corruption accusations have also been made against Nalyvaichenko’s
potential replacement Anatoly Hrytsak and other top SBU officials.
The case against Danylenko, who has been at
the center of several major corruption scandals, is being halted as critics
accuse the Prosecutor General’s Office of failing to investigate any
high-profile graft cases.
“We have found out that Danylenko is not a
co-owner (of BRSM-Nafta) and has not struck any deals,” Shokin said. “The
ecocide case has been closed. It was started without proper grounds. Currently
we have no questions for Danylenko.”
At the same time, the SBU cancelled an
interrogation of Danylenko scheduled for June 19, UNN reported, citing the
security agency.
Nalyvaichenko’s spokesman Markian Lubkivsky
said by phone that he attributed his boss’s dismissal to what he described as
his crackdown on corruption, including his accusations against Danylenko.
Accusations against Danylenko and his former
boss, ex-Prosecutor General Vitaly Yarema, were made after Interior Minister
Arsen Avakov said last week that in October the Prosecutor General’s Office
halted a criminal case against BRSM-Nafta into the sale of hazardous substances
and illegal sales of excisable goods.
The fire at the BRSM-Nafta oil depot that
sparked the accusations was called the biggest in Ukraine for half a century.
It continued for a week earlier this month and killed six people.
Danylenko was also at the center of a major
corruption scandal in September 2014, when Nashi Groshi, an investigative
TV project, reported that 140 hectares of land and ponds in Kyiv
Oblast had been illegally privatized by a firm that used to be owned by
Danylenko’s son Vyacheslav.
Alina Strizhak, a journalist at Nashi Groshi,
said then that she and her family had been threatened by an unknown man shortly
before the investigation was aired.
Nashi Groshi also reported last year that
Vyacheslav Danylenko owned about five hectares of forestland in Kyiv Oblast and
that companies linked to Danylenko’s family were running a real estate business
in Kyiv.
Yarema said later an internal probe had found
no wrongdoing on Danylenko’s part.
Andriy Demartino, a spokesman for the Prosecutor General’s Office, was not available by phone.
The latest scandal about Danylenko coincided
with one about alleged backdoor deals reached before Nalyvaichenko’s dismissal.
Sergei Vysotsky, a member of the People’s
Front parliamentary faction, confirmed in a Facebook post on June 19 that he
had written a message about an alleged agreement between Lviv Mayor and
Samopomich party leader Andriy Sadovy and Poroshenko on firing Nalyvaichenko.
Vysotsky claimed, however, that the message was referring to a rumor and he had
no factual information proving it.
According to a YouTube video of the June 18
Verkhovna Rada session recorded by journalists, Vysotsky texts blogger Karl
Volokh on a smartphone: “(Lviv Mayor and Samopomich leader) Sadovy was given
the position of the Lviv prosecutor and the Lviv customs office in exchange for
Valentyn (Nalyvaichenko).”
Sadovy referred to Vysotsky’s message as
nonsense in a Facebook post on June 18.
Nalyvaichenko’s dismissal also re-ignited the
outcry about allegations made in an Austrian court in April by Firtash, who
faces racketeering charges in the U.S.
Firtash, an ally of ousted President Viktor
Yanukovych, claimed he had met with Poroshenko and Vitali Klitschko, who is now
mayor of Kyiv, in Vienna before the May 25 presidential election and reached an
agreement with them on getting Poroshenko elected as president. Poroshenko has
confirmed that he had met with Firtash but denied the existence of any
agreement.
In what was perceived as a veiled threat to
Poroshenko and Klitschko, Nalyvaichenko told the Obozrevatel news site in a
June 18 interview that all participants of the Vienna meeting would be taken to
court in the U.S. and Austria.
The comments followed accusations by
Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko that Nalyvaichenko is a protégé of
Firtash.
The people reportedly being considered as
Nalyvaichenko’s replacement have also come under fire.
One of them – SBU Deputy Chief Vasyl Hrytsak,
who was appointed as the agency’s acting chief – is in charge of SBU operations
in the war zone.
“He’s responsible for smuggling through
checkpoints, the trade in war zone permits (for civilians) and coal trains from
the Donetsk People’s Republic to Ukraine,” Yegor Firsov, a member of
Nalyvaichenko’s UDAR party and the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, wrote in a column for
Obozrevatel on June 18.
Poroshenko himself addressed the problem of
smuggling on June 18. “Countering smuggling is a direct responsibility of the
State Security Service and there is nothing to be proud of. I am very
disappointed with that,” he said at a meeting with SBU officials.
Ihor Kononenko, a Poroshenko Bloc member,
defended Hrytsak on June 18, saying that he is “probably the only top SBU
official that we have no complaints against.” Hrytsak spends most of his time
in the war zone and is in charge of the highly efficient Alfa special forces
unit, Kononenko argued.
SBU Deputy Chief Yury Artyukhov, who heads the
SBU’s anti-corruption department, is another potential candidate to replace
Nalyvaichenko, according to Firsov.
But on June 19 speculation about Artyukhov
replacing Nalyvaichenko was effectively refuted by Poroshenko. He asked Hrytsak
to prepare documents for firing Artyukhov, as well as SBU deputy chiefs Vitaly
Tsyganok and Viktor Yahun, as well as Vasyl Vovk, head of the agency’s main
investigative department.
Firsov wrote that “everyone knows that (Artyukhov’s)
department covers up all corruption schemes in Ukraine.”
In May Tetiana Chornovol, a People’s Front
party lawmaker, accused Artyukhov of running a protection racket for smuggling
oil products from the occupied territories to Ukraine jointly with Yanukovych
allies.
Earlier this month Chornovol also accused
Artyukhov of illegally seizing a car dealership in Kyiv from a U.S. citizen.
Artyukhov has admitted at a Rada committee hearing that Gennady Razumei, who
reportedly owns the dealership now, is a friend of his, Serhiy Shcherbina, head
of the INSIDER Internet news project, wrote on Facebook on June 18.
Shcherbina also said Artyukhov was closely
linked to Poroshenko through a network of business interests and common friends
one of which recently got the job of aircraft maker Antonov’s president.
Lubkivsky told the Kyiv Post he would not
comment on corruption accusations against SBU officials, while SBU spokeswoman
Olena Hiklianska was not available by phone.
Kyiv Post staff
writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].
