Ukraine’s Parliament voted on June 3 to strip prosecutorial immunity rights for Serhiy Klyuyev, a current lawmaker who served in deposed President Viktor Yanukovych’s ruling Party of Regions. His older brother, Andriy Klyuyev, was the former president’s chief of staff and fled Ukraine in the wake of the EuroMaidan Revolution in February 2014.
The European Union in March had indicated it would lift asset freezes imposed of Serhiy Klyuyev and other members of Yanukovych’s former inner circle on June 6 if Ukraine didn’t provide credible evidence of wrongdoing.
Nearly two-thirds, or 287 lawmakers, supported the decision.
Serhiy Klyuyev is a multimillionaire who, in September 2013, was the nominal owner of Mezhyhirya – the palatial 140-hectare, billion-dollar estate that Yanukovych occupied during his presidency. Authorities say the ex-president took over the property via a series of illegal transactions.
Prosecutors accuse Serhiy Klyuyev of fraud, misappropriation of property, and abuse of power.
Klyuyev denies any wrongdoing.
“I am not involved in any crime, and the procedural committee members (that analyzed the case and recommended the parliamentary vote) were pressured,” Klyuyev said, while addressing lawmakers in parliament on June 3.
He then accused his detractors of exacting political vengeance.
“I’m not asking you to support me, I just call on you to fulfill the requirements of the Constitution and prevent the vicious practice when decisions are based not on the rule of law, but rather on political motivation,” Serhiy Klyuyev said.
In March 2014, the European Union froze his and his brother’s assets “for involvement in crimes in connection with the embezzlement of Ukrainian state funds and their illegal transfer outside Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin has recommended that Serhiy Klyuyev be imprisoned for 10 years.
Pro-presidential lawmaker Yuriy Lutsenko said in parliament that now it’s up to the court to decide on his case. Batkivshyna Party lawmaker Serhiy Sobolev said that the prosecutor’s office should do everything so “no one would be hiding behind a deputy’s mandate.”
Ex-volunteer battalion commander stripped
Former Aidar Battalion commander and current lawmaker Serhiy Melnychuk also had his immunity from prosecution removed in a separate parliamentary vote on June 3.
However, lawmakers voted to reject a prosecutorial request to arrest Melnychuk. He is accused of creating a group of gangs that allegedly kidnapped people in Kyiv and Zhytomyr oblasts.
A report by human rights group Amnesty International published in September alleges the Aidar Battalion engaged in “abductions, unlawful detention, ill-treatment, robbery, extortion, and possible executions.”
Aidar last year mainly operated in Luhansk Oblast while fighting combined Russian-separatist forces to liberated occupied territory.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected].
