Two key members of an anti-corruption group that has investigated assets closely tied to the nation’s ruling elite on Jan. 23 have fled the country, its director told the Kyiv Post.
Anti-Corruption Action Center director Vitaliy Shabunin said
they left because they felt their lives were in danger, adding that the tires
to his car were slashed on the night of Jan. 22-23, the same night when riot
police and hired thugs believed to be aligned with the government ambushed,
beat and detained more than 15 AutoMaidan activists.
He added that sources in two law enforcement agencies, and several
opposition members of parliament advised that the center’s principal managers to
leave the country otherwise they could be persecuted or even kidnapped.
Dmytro Bulatov, the chief leader of AutoMaidan, a roving
protest on wheels closely attached to EuroMaidan, has been missing since Jan.
22 and is presumed dead. Meanwhile, a EuroMaidan activist from Lviv, Yuriy
Verbytsky, was found dead in a forest outside Kyiv the same day after being
abducted by some 10 unidentified individuals from a hospital the day before.
Police are investigating his death as murder.
Shabunin of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, however, wouldn’t
disclose who fled Ukraine, their current whereabouts or whether they are
together, but added that they continue to work from abroad.
The group has called on the alleged assets
of President Viktor Yanukovych and other top-level officials and close
associates to be frozen. In addition to the president, it has investigated alleged
assets tied to his chief of staff, Andriy Kluyev and his younger brother Serhiy
Kluyev who is a member of parliament; and former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov
and his son Oleksiy Azarov, a lawmaker.
Its most recent investigation was into assets allegedly connected
to Oleksandr Yefremov, the head of the ruling Party of Regions faction in
parliament.
Shabunin has emphasized that current anti-money laundering
laws should be more strictly enforced in the European Union and the U.S.
related to politically exposed persons, or PEPs, including heightened scrutiny of
proxy and corporate agents that they use to hide their money.
Kyiv Post editor Mark
Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
