Investigative actions taken involving editor-in-chief of the Kyiv-based Strana.ua news portal Ihor Huzhva were conducted legally. It was a case about extortion and has nothing to do with pressuring media,” head of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) Yuriy Lutsenko has said.
“I can state unequivocally that freedom of speech was not infringed. None was found there. Agents instead found $10,000, which were extorted for not publishing compromising materials,” Lutsenko said during a briefing in Zhytomyr on Friday.
Lutsenko said Huzhva is also the subject of an investigation initiated by Ukraine’s State Fiscal Service last year for tax evasion in the amount of Hr 94 million.
“According to that investigation in 2013 Huzhva, as an executive of Vesti Mass-Media LLC, received financial assistance in the amount of Hr 94 million from a fictitious enterprise MPP Ledis. The source of the funds was a group of companies controlled by Ukrainian businessman (Serhiy) Kurchenko, who has fled Ukraine. The money received was used to finance the commercial activities of legal entities, which belonged to the Multimedia Invest Group holding. These included Internet resources and other mass media controlled by Huzhva,” the PGO chief said.
According to Lutsenko, the experts involved in the investigation estimated losses (to the state) of approximately Hr 17.7 million.
“This (tax evasion) case is being handled by Kyiv’s Shevchenkivsky District Court. Huzhva prefers not to speak about it. But he is accused of large-scale tax evasion,” Lutsenko said.
Another criminal case involving Huzhva and funds from Kurchenko, whom Lutsenko said robbed Ukraine of billions of hryvnias, involves propaganda Huzhva helped produce for the so-called “Russian world” (for pro-Russia media audiences in Ukraine and Russia).
As earlier reported, Huzhva was arrested in Kyiv on Thursday, June 22, 2017.
According to head of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) Yuriy Lutsenko, Huzhva demanded $10,000 in exchange for not publishing compromising material.
According to the PGO, photographic and video evidence backs up charges of impropriety.
