Nazar Kholodnytsky, Ukraine’s recently appointed chief anti-corruption prosecutor, has just been given a birthday gift from his first deputy, war veteran Maxim Gryshchuk.
The present is a grenade launcher with the phrase “liquidator of corruption” written on it.
The metaphor is powerful, but the key question is, will Kholodnytsky be independent enough from the president, prosecutor general and other authorities to be able to train his sights on the biggest corruption targets, even if they happen to be the prime minister and president?
“As of today, I can state that there’s no pressure on me and my subordinates,” Kholodnytsky said in an interview with the Kyiv Post. “But I don’t know what will happen in the future – time will tell.”
Kholodnytsky said he was ready to take on the allies of the nation’s leaders – the president and prime minister – if there is evidence of their corruption.
But critics say there are still abundant means for political influence to be wielded over the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office.
With politicians
Kholodnytsky was appointed the chief anti-corruption prosecutor in November. His office currently employs 24 prosecutors.
The anti-corruption prosecutor’s office works in tandem with another newly created graft-fighting body – the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. The two agencies, whose employees enjoy higher wages and supposedly greater independence, are intended to make up for the failure of the Prosecutor General’s Office to investigate Ukraine’s endemic corruption.
The key question is whether Kholodnytsky will be independent from the president.
Last month, a Radio Liberty reporter saw Kholodnytsky leaving the Presidential Administration and asked him whether the visit was at odds with the anti-corruption prosecutor’s claimed independence. He replied that it did not conflict with his independent status.
He also dismissed the report in his conversation with the Kyiv Post, saying that he had been discussing funding for the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office with President Petro Poroshenko.
“I didn’t go there through any secret underground tunnels,” Kholodnytsky said. “I went there openly – I don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”
He said Poroshenko had eventually helped him obtain the necessary budget funding for his office.
“The president is the only one who has said he completely supports me,” Kholodnytsky added. “I’m thankful to him for this.”
Another event that triggered speculation about Kholodnytsky’s links to Poroshenko was the issuing in January of a presidential decree promoting the anti-corruption chief to a rank that is the prosecutorial equivalent of major general.
Kholodnytsky showed the decree – which stands framed and proudly displayed in his office – to the Kyiv Post, but he argued that it had nothing to do with presidential influence and was just a formal promotion due to his appointment as the nation’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor.
He also mentioned that some lawmakers had boasted that they were friends with the anti-corruption prosecutor. He accused them of “petty fraud.”
With prosecutor general
Kholodnytsky’s legal status in relation to the prosecutor general is also ambiguous.
Technically his office is a department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, and Kholodnytsky is a deputy prosecutor general.
“It would be untrue to say that we are completely independent,” he said. “But we are sufficiently autonomous.”
The anti-corruption prosecutor’s office has different hiring procedures and functions from the Prosecutor General’s Office, as well as special budget funding, he argued.
Though Kholodnytsky says he gets instructions from the prosecutor general on technical issues, they are not linked to investigating corruption.
“He has no right to issue any instructions on the substance of criminal cases,” he said. “It hasn’t happened, and if it does happen, I will fight it.”
Higher wages
One big difference between ordinary prosecutors and the new anti-corruption bodies is their wages.
During the competitive hiring process at the Prosecutor General’s Office last year, there were few competent applicants and few people from outside the prosecutorial system because of the low wages offered, Kholodnytsky said.
There were just two or three applicants for each local chief prosecutor’s job, for which the monthly wage is about Hr 4,000 ($150), Kholodnytsky said.
In contrast, about 30 candidates applied for each investigator’s job at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau over the same period, he added. Investigators of the bureau get about Hr 30,000 ($1,130) per month.
Kononenko case
A major litmus test that could show that Kholodnytsky’s team is really different from ordinary prosecutors would be their ability to prosecute the allies of Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
One such ally is Poroshenko’s business partner Ihor Kononenko, whom Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius has publicly accused of corruption and trying to impose placemen at the head of state-owned firms. Abromavicius resigned over the issue on Feb. 3, sparking a political crisis. The Ukrainian parliament has yet to hold a vote to formally dismiss the minister.
But even after all the furor, analysts speculate that it will be difficult for the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office to tackle the case.
“If there is a statement like this, there must be grounds for it,” Kholodnytsky said. “Is there any evidence? They say ‘let the National Anti-Corruption Bureau look for it.’”
But it is difficult to look for evidence in such cases under the public spotlight, Kholodnytsky said.
“Money loves silence,” he said. “When a river is roaring, it’s hard to catch fish.”
Kholodnytsky said that the Viber chat between Abromavicius and a top oil firm executive published earlier this month “proves some facts” in the Kononenko case, but he did not “know whether the courts would recognize this as admissible evidence.”
Martynenko case
Another high-profile corruption investigation is that against ex-lawmaker Mykola Martynenko, a Yatsenyuk ally. Kholodnytsky said his office is cooperating with Swiss, Austrian and U.S. authorities on the Martynenko case.
“We’ve put a lot of effort into this case,” he said. “About seven of my prosecutors are working on it and twice as many investigators.”
But no notice of suspicion has been filed against Martynenko so far, and he is not under arrest.
Kholodnytsky argued that there were no grounds to detain Martynenko at this point, and in such complicated cases it takes a lot of time to uncover corruption schemes and track money flows.
“There are cases where you can file a notice of suspicion within three days or a week,” he said. “But there are no cases like that at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. We’re not talking about the theft of a sausage from an Auchan supermarket.”
Public wants results
Commenting on other cases, Kholodnytsky said his office had already submitted to the court one case against a lawyer accused of bribing a judge in Luhansk Oblast.
He added that three to four bribery cases against judges would be sent to the court by the end of February.
Apart from possible pressure from politicians, in all major corruption investigations Kholodnytsky also faces pressure from civil society, which has yet to see the first high-profile convictions for corruption.
“We don’t have time but we need to find some,” he said. “I understand that society wants to see prison terms being handed down already. People don’t understand that these (anti-graft) bodies were only created recently.”
He said that, for society, high-profile corruption cases like those against Martynenko and Kononenko were like “Internet hashtags” or a cliffhanger television series, with the public impatient to see the next episode.
But prosecutors cannot rush to produce the “next episode” unless there is evidence to back it up, he added.
The public want quick convictions, but corruption schemes involving multiple offshore companies take a lot of time to investigate, he argued.
In Romania a notice of suspicion was recently filed against a former prime minister, but the investigation against him had lasted seven years, Kholodnytsky added.
“But if I come out and say ‘Ukrainians, wait until 2022’ (before convictions begin), what do you think they’ll do to me? Will they lustrate me?” he smiled, referring to the lustration law intended to fire top officials who served under ex-President Viktor Yanukovych.
