Reformer of the week – Andriy Perov

Andriy Perov, an anti-corruption prosecutor, has presented the graft case against ex-lawmaker Mykola Martynenko in court jointly with his colleague Roman Symkiv.

Martynenko, who sees the case as fabricated and political, has been charged with organized crime and embezzling $17 million during the sale of uranium ore to the state-owned Eastern Ore Dressing Plant.

The prosecutors asked Oleksandr Bobrovnik, a judge at Kyiv’s Solomyansky Court, to set Hr 300 million bail for Martynenko, but Bobrovnik released the defendant without bail on April 22.

Perov and Symkiv have also led the corruption case against State Fiscal Service Chief Roman Nasirov, who was arrested by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau on embezzlement charges and released on Hr 100 million bail in March.

Bobrovnik is accused of having links to President Petro Poroshenko’s gray cardinal and lawmaker Oleksandr Hranovsky, who denies there are any connections between them. Last year, Bobrovnik banned the anti-graft bureau from accessing Viber messages written by Olga Tkachenko, an ex-aide to Hranovsky, in a corruption case.

Bobrovnik has also been investigated over an allegedly unlawful court ruling: some see the case as a way for the Prosecutor General’s Office to influence him.

Anti-reformer of the week – Volodymyr Omelyan

Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan dealt a blow to his reputation on April 21 when he backed ex-lawmaker Mykola Martynenko, a suspect in an embezzlement case, along with 22 other top officials.

The minister’s critics see this as him effectively supporting high-profile corruption, though Omelyan claims his actions were in line with the rule of law.

Omelyan said he had signed a motion for Martynenko not to be kept under arrest, though his signature is not included in the list of those who officially vouched for him in a separate court document.

“This is the People’s Front position, and I’m a minister delegated to the Cabinet of Ministers by this party,” Omelyan wrote on Facebook on April 22.

He said he did not know Martynenko personally, and had last seen him in 2014, when he merely greeted him. Omelyan’s opponents argue that he had no right to vouch for him, since he barely knew him.

Omelyan has performed an about-turn after becoming the Kyiv Post’s reformer of the week on Feb. 2 for exposing corruption in infrastructure.