You're reading: Source says Poroshenko sides with top prosecutors charged with bribery

President Petro Poroshenko is actively siding with the two “diamond prosecutors” arrested in July on suspicion of bribery, a source close to the Prosecutor General’s Office has told the Kyiv Post.

Moreover,
according to the source, Poroshenko even ordered a crackdown on the
business from which prosecutors Oleksandr Korniyets and Volodymyr
Shapakin allegedly extorted money. The source spoke on condition of
anonymity for fear of persecution.

Poroshenko’s spokesman Sviatoslav Tsegolko did not reply to repeated requests for comment on these claims.

Korniyets and Shapakin have been nicknamed the “diamond prosecutors” in Ukraine, because, in raids last summer, investigators found a number of diamonds among the valuables kept in their homes and offices.

The Kyiv Post’s source said that then-Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, a Poroshenko loyalist, said at a meeting with subordinates in July that the president had ordered him to destroy the business involved in the case. Poroshenko also wanted a crackdown on lawmaker Vyacheslav Konstantinovsky, who informed then-Deputy Prosecutor General Davit Sakvarelidze about the alleged bribery, according to the source.

However, in July, Poroshenko said that he supported Sakvarelidze’s efforts to prosecute Korniyets and Shapakin.

The case is seen as a litmus test for the Ukrainian law enforcement system’s ability to cleanse its ranks and prosecute corruption.

But Poroshenko’s opponents say that, among the evidence of presidential interference in the case, was his consistent support for the discredited Shokin, Ukraine’s top prosecutor for more than a year. Shokin had been under pressure to resign for months before the president finally signed a decree removing him on April 3 after a vote in parliament.

Poroshenko’s key allies are also believed to be behind criminal cases opened against Sakvarelidze and ex-Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaly Kasko, who opened the case against Korniyets and Shapakin.

On April 14, prosecutors sought to arrest Kasko in a fraud case that the former deputy prosecutor general believes to be retaliation for his stance on Korniyets and Shapakin and his allegations of widespread prosecutorial corruption. Kyiv’s Pechersk Court rejected the motion and instead imposed travel restrictions on him.

Kasko resigned in February, while Sakvarelidze was fired in March, and most of their subordinates have already been fired or suspended. As a result, the Korniyets-Shapakin case is collapsing.

Vitaly Opanasenko, one of
the major prosecutors working on the Korniyets-Shapakin case, resigned on April 14.

Poroshenko on April 14 also officially fired Viktor Trepak, a deputy head of the Security Service of Ukraine who participated in the arrest of Korniyets and Shapakin. Trepak submitted his resignation in November following a conflict with Shokin over the bribery case.

The source said that prosecutors were planning to serve notices of suspicion to Trepak and Sakvarelidze in criminal cases.

Alyona Yakhno, an ex-spokeswoman for the Kyiv prosecutor’s office, wrote on Facebook on April 15 that she had also seen a notice of suspicion for Odesa Oblast Governor Mikheil Saakashvili, an ally of Sakvarelidze, in an abuse of power case, though Poroshenko had not authorized it.

Korniyets and Shapakin, meanwhile, are free after being released on bail last July.
In contrast with the Korniyets-Shapakin case, the investigation against the business that they are suspected of attacking is actively moving forward. Pressure by prosecutors is still continuing and involves the destruction of the company’s property, Dmytro Boichuk, a lawyer who represents the business, told the Kyiv Post.

Vladyslav Kutsenko, a spokesman for the Prosecutor General’s Office, told the Kyiv Post that Boichuk should file reports with law enforcement agencies if he believes prosecutors violated the law.

Demonstration of force

Korniyets and Shapakin have been accused of taking an Hr 3.15 million ($125,000) bribe from businessman Andriy Huz.

Since 2012, Korniyets and other prosecutors have opened six criminal cases against two companies controlled by Huz – Gidroekoresurs and Chisty Grunt – for allegedly illegal sand production.
Boichuk said the companies have a contract to clean a river bed in Kyiv Oblast, which involves removing sand, but do not specialize in sand production.

“The aim was to force the companies to pay them bribes,” Boichuk said. “This was effectively pressure and a demonstration of force.”

Last April prosecutors searched the companies’ premises and seized all documents, company stamps and computers, paralyzing their work, he said.

Boichuk said that unidentified people in sports clothing, colloquially known as “titushki” (hired thugs) were involved in the searches, which is illegal.

He said the alleged “titushki” had beat up the business’s security guards and driver in April.
“A giant army” of about 50 prosecutors, police officers and “titushki” was involved in the investigation, he added.

Destroying business

In July, when Korniyets and Shapakin were arrested, prosecutors “forgot about the business — but not for long,” Boichuk said.

On Sept. 2, the investigation against the business was stepped up again, he said.
In December, the companies found out that their equipment was being broken up into metal scrap, which Boichuk said could be sold later.

Boichuk showed video footage of the companies’ equipment being broken up.

The companies asked the police to open a criminal case into the destruction of their property. Boichuk said the police were reluctant to open the investigation from the beginning, and are now dragging their feet on it.

“(Prosecutors) vehemently hate everything linked to our business,” Boichuk said. “This equipment is a symbol of our companies’ unrealized hopes, financial prosperity and career growth. They just want to physically destroy it.”

Boichuk said that, according to the public register of court decisions, prosecutors were still actively investigating the case and obtaining court permits for various actions.

Prosecutors are also
trying to cancel the companies’ contract to clean the river bed, he
said.

Poroshenko link

Poroshenko’s critics argue that the evidence for the president’s intervention in the Korniyets-Shapakin case is abundant.

The investigation against Gidroekoresurs and Chisty Grunt has been overseen by two Poroshenko loyalists, acting Prosecutor General Yury Sevruk and Deputy Prosecutor General Yury Stolyarchuk.

Meanwhile, the criminal cases against Kasko and Sakvarelidze were initiated by the newly-created anti-corruption department within the office supervised by Stolyarchuk, who is considered to be Poroshenko’s preferred candidate for prosecutor general.

Sergii Leshchenko, a lawmaker in the pro-presidential Bloc of Petro Poroshenko faction in parliament, has claimed that the department is effectively subordinated to the president and is overseen by influential Poroshenko allies — lawmakers Ihor Kononenko and Oleksandr Hranovsky. They have denied any wrongdoing.

Pavlo Dykan, a lawyer for slain EuroMaidan Revolution protesters, told the Kyiv Post that Hranovsky had been attending meetings of top officials at the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Poroshenko’s critics also argue that Sakvarelidze, who clashed with Shokin over the Korniyets-Shapakin case, could not have been fired without Poroshenko’s approval.

Sakvarelidze said earlier this month that, in his conflict with Shokin and his allies, Poroshenko had backed Shokin and the “old guard.”

Korniyets and Shapakin are seen as protégés of Shokin.

Korniyets was a driver for the Kyiv prosecutor’s office from 1994 to 1998, and Shokin was a department head there at the same time. Korniyets has denied that he used to be Shokin’s driver. In March, Sakvarelidze said a copy of Shokin’s passport and his land registration documents had been found in Korniyets’ house, and suggested that the top prosecutor had been in on the shakedown.

Fabulous wealth

The arrest of Korniyets, an ex-deputy of Kyiv Oblast’s chief prosecutor, and Shapakin, a former first deputy head of the main investigative department, was the first-ever attempt in Ukrainian history to seriously take on prosecutorial corruption.

The spectacular wealth of Korniyets and his family includes an Hr 10 million ($392,000) house, seven apartments in Kyiv, and several luxury cars.

Investigators found over $500,000 in cash, an AK-47 assault rifle, edged weapons and 65 cut diamonds in the houses and offices of Korniyets and Shapakin in July.

In the same month, Korniyets and Shapakin were released on Hr 3.2 million ($125,000) and Hr 6.4 million ($250,000) bail respectively. The bribery case was sent to court in January.

In February Sakvarelidze’s subordinates filed a new notice of suspicion against Korniyets, accusing him of extorting money from Nikolsan, a garbage disposal company, and subsequently seizing the business.

Kasko and Sakvarelidze said before their dismissal that they had also planned to file two other notices of suspicion against Korniyets.

One of them concerns an investigation into the discrepancy between Korniyets’ declared revenues and his spending of 140,000 British pounds to finance his daughter Anastasia’s studies in London in 2012-2014.

Another planned notice of suspicion was to have concerned the origin of the diamonds found in Korniyets’ house.

In March ICTV, a television channel, released the results of a journalistic investigation indicating that the diamonds could have been illegally seized by prosecutors from a jewelry business.

ICTV journalists said that they had been pressured not to broadcast the show.

Now, however, all such investigations have stalled due to the dismissal of Sakvarelidze, Kasko and their subordinates.