Director General of TVi Channel Mykola Kniazhytsky has said that the channel's foreign currency accounts have been frozen.
“All of our foreign currency accounts have been arrested under a letter from the Economy Ministry, which is absurd and has no legal grounds,” he told the Ukrainska Pravda online newspaper on Wednesday.
Kniazhytsky also said that the arrest had already been appealed against at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine.
At the same time, he said that the channel had lost in court an appeal lodged by the State Tax Service regarding the reimbursement of UAH 9 million in tax debts. The channel won the case in a lower court.
On July 12, 2012, reports said that a criminal case had been opened against TVi Director Kniazhytsky. The tax police accused him of failing to pay UAH 3 million in taxes to the budget. Kniazhytsky said that he had already won all of the trials on this case and that he had paid all taxes. The tax police started checking the channel’s documents, although Head of the State Tax Service Oleksandr Klymenko signed an order in April 2012 declaring a moratorium on media checks before parliamentary elections.
On July 27 the prosecutor’s office cancelled an instruction on the opening of the criminal case against Kniazhytsky. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Prosecutor General of Ukraine Viktor Pshonka ordered to check whether the criminal case was opened legally.
Kniazhytsky is eleventh in the party ticket of the united opposition.
