Protesters held a rally against Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and his deputies Volodymyr Huzyr and Yury Stolyarchuk near the Prosecutor General’s Office on July 24.
The activists, including
representatives of the Anti-Corruption Action Center and the AutoMaidan
car-based protest group, called for firing the top prosecutors after evidence emerged that they were trying to thwart a crackdown on corruption at the
Prosecutor General’s Office.
Lawmakers Serhiy
Leshchenko and Mustafa Nayyem said earlier this month that Shokin, Huzyr and
Stolyarchuk had been pressuring investigators who organized the arrest of two
top prosecutors accused of large-scale bribery on July 6.
Deputy Prosecutor Generals
Davit Sakvarelidze and Vitaly Kasko, who organized the arrest, said last week that the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office had started two criminal
cases against them and their investigators.
Shokin has also been
criticized for failing to send a single corruption case against ousted
President Viktor Yanukovych and his allies to court and letting some of them
flee the country.
Protesters also called for
arresting and bringing to justice Kharkiv Mayor Hennady Kernes, who is suspected
of kidnapping two EuroMaidan activists, torturing them and
threatening to kill them in January 2014.
The Kernes trial started in March but it has been postponed many times due to what critics believe to be
authorities’ reluctance to prosecute the mayor and the political influence he has.
