Allies of ex-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Moldovan oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc helped a judge charged with graft escape Ukraine using another person’s passport, according to a March 29 investigation by Rise Moldova and Slidtsvo.info.
Poroshenko did not respond to requests for comment, and Plahotniuc, who is wanted in Moldova, was not available for comment.
The judge, Mykola Chaus, was caught receiving a $150,000 bribe in August 2016. Chaus couldn’t be immediately arrested because, as a judge, he had immunity from prosecution. He then fled to Moldova.
According to Chaus’ lawyer, Iulian Balan, the Ukrainian judge was kidnapped in the Moldovan capital Chisinau on April 3.
The Chaus case has been one of the most high-profile investigations of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU).
Rise Moldova and Slidtsvo cited a leaked Feb. 29, 2020 document issued by Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court that referred to an investigation by the NABU.
Details of escape
Poroshenko’s security guards; Oleksandr Hranovsky, an ex-lawmaker from Poroshenko’s party, and incumbent President Volodymyr Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff Andriy Smyrnov took part in Chaus’ escape, according to the NABU. An employee of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s main intelligence department was also involved, the NABU said.
Hranovsky, the security guard service and the defense ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Smyrnov denied the accusations.
Yury Fyodorov, an employee of Poroshenko’s security guard service, reportedly gave an order to another Poroshenko security guard to organize a meeting at Kyiv’s Zhulyany Airport between Dorin Damir, an associate of Moldovan oligarch Plahotniuc, and Vyacheslav Turcu, a Moldovan-born resident of Ukraine. They had arrived in Kyiv on a charter flight.
Acting on Fyodorov’s orders, the security guard helped Chaus to leave Ukraine with Turcu’s passport without passing aviation security checks, the NABU said. Chaus and Turcu have a similar appearance, according to the investigators.
Turcu and Damir denied participating in Chaus’ escape from Ukraine.
Plahotniuc’s role
Damir was a member of the inner circle of Plahotniuc, according to Rise Moldova.
Plahotniuc was Moldova’s main oligarch until 2019, when he fled the country. He is currently wanted on charges of organized crime, fraud and money laundering.
Plahotniuc and Poroshenko had good relations and business dealings, according to Moldovan and Ukrainian media, including the Schemes investigative journalism project.
At around the same time when Chaus fled Ukraine, the Ukrainian authorities invalidated the Ukrainian passport of Vyacheslav Platon, a political opponent of Plahotniuc, and extradited him to Moldova, where he was jailed in an embezzlement case.
Smyrnov’s role
The court document also mentions Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff Smyrnov as one of several people who allegedly helped Chaus hide and later flee to Moldova. According to the document, Smyrnov and another lawyer, Kim Veremiychuk, drove Chaus to his hiding place in the Alpine Residential Complex, an expensive apartment complex in Kyiv.
“This is absolute nonsense,” Smyrnov told Slidstvo.Info, commenting on his alleged role in Chaus’ escape.
The second lawyer mentioned along with Smyrnov, Veremiychuk, told the Kyiv Post that he won’t comment on a fake document.
Chaus’ background
In 2017 the NABU applied for Chaus’ extradition from Moldova, where he applied for political asylum. Then Moldovan President Igor Dodon rejected Chaus’ asylum request, so the judge appealed the decision in court.
A Moldovan court is expected to decide on Chaus’ asylum on April 28.
Chaus, who worked at Kyiv’s Dnipro District Court, was accused by anti-corruption activists of being a judge controlled by Poroshenko and Hranovsky. They denied the accusations of influencing law enforcement.
In 2015, Chaus ruled in favor of a company linked to Hranovsky in a dispute over Kyiv’s Sky Mall shopping center. The same year he also issued an arrest warrant for Gennady Korban, a political opponent of Poroshenko, in a kidnapping and theft case.
Editor’s Note: This report is part of the Investigative Hub project, within which the Kyiv Post monitors investigative reports in the Ukrainian media and brings them to the English-speaking audience, as well as produces original investigative stories. The project is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy.
