Employees of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) have completed investigative actions in the apartment of First Deputy Head of the State Migration Service (SMS) of Ukraine Dina Pimakhova, and she was not served with a notice of suspicion.
“Investigative actions are over… A notice of suspicion was not served,” Pimakhova told journalists on Jan.24.
According to her, NABU employees broke the door to her house without waiting for the arrival of lawyers.
Pimakhova said that she had granted full access to all things.
“NABU employees carried out a detailed search. There were and can be no illegal things, because there were no illegal actions on my part. The investigative actions are over. The investigation will be further carried out,” she said, assuring that she would fully assist NABU investigators.
When asked whether she was handed a notice of suspicion, Pimakhova said: “The issue does not concern any suspicion. To date, I openly told the investigation that I am ready to come [for interrogation].”
She regards what is happening as “some kind of revenge” for actions against NABU employee Serhiy Tytenkov.
NABU employees have searched Pimakhova’s house since the morning on Wednesday.
In November 2017, the State Migration Service reported the arrest of NABU agent Tytenkov during an attempt to give a bribe to Pimakhova.
“For several months the NABU agent… repeatedly attempted to provoke Pimakhova, offering her large sums of money in return for illegal decisions on legalizing citizens of Vietnam and Iran in Ukraine who didn’t even exist,” the SMS’ press service said.
According to the SMS, Pimakhova turned to law enforcement agencies that there was an attempt to give her a bribe. After that the law enforcement officers carried out operational and search measures to document a criminal group.
“As a result, when an attempt was made to transfer the first part of the bribe in the amount of $15,000, the NABU agent was detained at the scene of the crime by SBU officers. The criminal actions of the NABU agent on provoking bribery of an official envisage accountability under Article 370 of the Criminal Code ‘provocation of bribery,'” reads the report.
The NABU said that it never provoked any State Migration Service official into receiving a bribe and that the Prosecutor General’s Office and the SBU “illegally intervened” in their special operation aimed at identifying members of an organized criminal group at the SMSU, by detaining on November 29 their detective who worked under cover. According to the NABU, in fact, there is a “planned act of sabotage” against NABU and SAPO employees, realized by the SBU and sanctioned by the prosecutor general.
