Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and Verkhovna Rada member Tetiana Chornovol have been accused of organizing a smear campaign against Shokin’s deputy Vitaly Kasko, a reformist prosecutor, and Arzinger, a law firm where Kasko had previously worked.
Chornovol, a lawmaker from
the People’s Front party, has accused Arzinger, Kasko and Deputy Justice
Minister Serhiy Shklyar, an ex-partner of the law firm, of serving the
interests of Russian oil firm Rosneft and Serhiy Klyuyev, an ex-ally of
disgraced former President Viktor Yanukovych.
Andriy Demartino, a
spokesman for the Prosecutor General’s Office, told the Kyiv Post he would not
comment on “nonsense,” while Kasko was not available for comment. Andrey Dzyndzya, an assistant to Chornovol, denied the
accusations.
The allegations come amid
a battle between reformist prosecutors Kasko and Davit Sakvarelidze and the
leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office. Kasko has been tapped as a
potential replacement for Shokin as prosecutor general and a candidate for the
job of the anti-corruption prosecutor.
Shokin, who is accused of
derailing all high-profile criminal investigations, is facing a campaign in the
Verkhovna Rada to dismiss him.
Chornovol, who has sided
with Shokin against Kasko, wrote last month that Arzinger had gotten a contract
to advise TNK Industries Ukraine, a Rosneft subsidiary, on unfreezing oil
products in a tax evasion case and disputing a court ruling to require the
company to pay taxes worth Hr 40 million. The oil products were unfrozen by a
court in October.
“This eloquently proves
that influential groups are working for a Russian oil giant whose petrodollars
support (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s regime,” Chornovol claimed.
Timur Bondarev, Arzinger’s
managing partner, told the Kyiv Post that Arzinger had been working with TNK
Industries Ukraine for many years and did not see anything wrong or
illegitimate with that.
Arzinger did get a
contract to provide legal services to the company in 2014 but TNK Industries
Ukraine soon cancelled the contract after a court ruled against it, Bondarev
said. This happened long before the oil products were unfrozen in October, he
said.
He also said attempts to
link Arzinger to Serhiy Kurchenko, a Yanukovych ally who sold the oil products
to TNK Industries Ukraine, were a smear job because the oil company was
actually a victim of Kurchenko, not an accomplice. All traders in Ukraine had
to buy oil products from Kurchenko, who is accused of importing them without
paying taxes, Bondarev said.
He attributed Chornovol’s
criticism of Arzinger to the fact that her ally, People’s Front lawmaker Serhiy
Pashynsky, is suspected of illegally selling oil products confiscated from
Kurchenko.
The alleged embezzlement
scheme has been described by Ukrainska Pravda, which cited materials of the
Security Service of Ukraine, and Verkhovna Rada members Dmytro Dobrodomov and
Serhiy Sobolev. Pashynsky denies the accusations.
Chornovol also said on
Nov. 2 that Arzinger had advised Klyuyev on a corruption scheme that involves
building solar power plants and selling their electricity at inflated
state-imposed prices.
She accused Arzinger of
causing damage worth Hr 2 billion to the budget as a result of the scheme.
Bondarev confirmed that
Arzinger had advised Klyuyev’s group but denied that the company had lobbied
for inflated electricity prices for solar power plants or had done anything
illegal.
Arzinger worked with
Klyuyev on commercial issues and financing, he added.
He argued that the attack
on Arzinger was an effort to discredit Kasko.
“This PR campaign is part of
the death throes of the old corrupt system, which is trying to smear the clean
hands that want to destroy it,” he said in a statement on Nov. 2.
Bondarev told the Kyiv
Post that, “since they didn’t find anything on Kasko, because he’s an
impeccably honest man, they’re trying to smear us in an effort to smear him.”
He said that Kasko had
been a partner and head of criminal law practice and European Court of Human
Rights practice at Arzinger and had not even been involved in the Rosneft and
Klyuyev cases.
Bondarev said he had been
appointed to the Prosecutor General’s Office because he was one of the “best
specialists” in the field of recovering stolen assets.
Andrey
Dzyndzya, an assistant to Chornovol, claimed by phone that Kasko had failed to
recover any stolen assets and prevented Olena Tyshchenko, an ex-head of the
Interior Ministry’s department for recovering stolen assets, from doing that.
Tyshchenko,
an ally of Choronovol and Pashynsky, was fired in September amid a scandal
related to a 2013 fraud case against her in Russia and accusations against both
her former husband Serhiy Tyshchenko and Pashynsky that they were involved a
scheme to illegally sell Kurchenko’s oil products.
Bondarev
said that top officials of the
Prosecutor General’s Office had sabotaged Kasko’s asset recovery efforts. One
example is that his powers have been constantly reduced, he added.
In July Shokin was also
accused of thwarting Kasko’s work when investigators subordinate to Kasko and
Sakvarelidze arrested two top prosecutors suspected of bribery. The Prosecutor
General’s Office started criminal cases against the investigators.
In October Shokin was suspected of putting pressure on Kasko by starting a probe against him.
As the campaign against
Kasko is gaining momentum, his boss Shokin faces a growing drive to oust him.
Yegor Sobolev, chairman of
the Verkhovna Rada’s anti-corruption committee, said on Nov. 3 that 120
signatures had been collected for the prosecutor general’s dismissal.
Serhiy Leshchenko, a Petro
Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker, wrote on Nov. 2 that he had submitted his signature
because the Prosecutor General’s Office refused to start a criminal case
against Mykola Martynenko, a lawmaker from the People’s Front. Swiss
authorities are investigating a bribery case against him but Ukraine’s
Prosecutor General’s Office has failed to look into the accusations.
Mustafa Nayyem, another
lawmaker from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, also wrote on the same day he had
submitted his signature.
Despite increasing
criticism of his work, Shokin seemed to be in a light-hearted and jovial mood
at a news briefing on Nov. 2.
When a Kyiv Post reporter
asked him in Russian, he asked whether he should reply in Russian or Ukrainian.
The reporter said that he can respond in any of the languages, and Shokin joked
he didn’t speak Chinese.
Kyiv Post staff writer
Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].
