Kyiv police on Aug. 16 handed Vitaly Shabunin, the head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, a notice of suspicion, accusing him of assaulting journalist and activist Vsevolod Filimonenko.
If convicted, Shabunin faces up to three years in prison.
A Kyiv court on Aug. 16 decided not to impose travel restrictions on Shabunin and required him to inform the authorities about changes in his address or occupation.
The Anti-Corruption Action Center and other anti-corruption activists see the case as part of what they see as President Petro Poroshenko’s campaign to intimidate and weaken civil society.
“The Anti-Corruption Action Center deems this case against Shabunin to be a political vendetta aimed at neutralizing a civic anti-corruption activist,” the center said in a statement.
The Shabunin case also follows Poroshenko’s July 27 decision to strip his major political opponent Mikheil Saakashvili, an ex-Georgian president, of his Ukrainian citizenship in what some lawyers believe to be an illegal and unconstitutional move.
Filimonenko incident
On June 8, Filimonenko approached Shabunin when unknown people served him summons to a military enlistment office and started asking him questions about his military service. Shabunin then hit Filimonenko in the face, saying that it was payback for Filimonenko insulting Oleksandra Ustinova, an expert at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, and making her cry.
Filimonenko then attacked Shabunin with pepper spray.
Shabunin’s lawyers argue that medics had initially found no injuries, and Filimonenko’s injuries were recorded only two weeks after the June 8 incident in what they suspect to be a falsified examination.
Shabunin, who has been excused military service for health reasons, said that the summons to the enlistment office was part of a campaign by the authorities to discredit anti-corruption activists. Shabunin then visited the relevant enlistment office chief, who said he was not aware of the summons and confirmed to Shabunin he was not subject to being drafted.
Previously activist Igor Piven threatened to take Shabunin to a military enlistment office by force. Piven is an aide to Serhiy Trigubenko, a lawmaker from President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, and an executive of National Interest, a non-governmental organization. National Interest has produced a propagandist film to smear the Anti-Corruption Action Center.
Ustinova was approached by Filimonenko and other people upon returning to Kyiv from a recent holiday to Sri Lanka in May. Ustinova said they had asked her about the money she had spent on her trip.
She said then she believed the people had been hired by the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, because the Anti-Corruption Action Center has sued the SBU for hiding its employees’ income declarations from the public and other state agencies.
Filimonenko’s background
Filimonenko, a native of Luhansk, is an aide to Serhiy Melnychuk, a lawmaker who was formerly a member of the Radical Party faction and the People’s Will, an offshoot of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. Filimonenko also has an Internet television project called Golos Naroda.
Oleksandr Lemenov, an expert at the Reanimation Package of Reforms, said on Facebook on Aug. 16 that he had used to be Filimonenko’s boss at the Chesno civic watchdog.
Lemenov said that Filimonenko had extorted money from a parliamentary candidate in exchange for not publishing compromising information, and had been expelled from Chesno for this. Filimonenko confirmed that he had been expelled from Chesno but denied the extortion allegations.
Lemenov also published what he claimed to be a screenshot of Filimonenko’s account with money allegedly transferred from pro-Russian separatist Maxim Zobov and an audio recording of a conversation between Zobov and Filimonenko.
Filimonenko confirmed talking to Zobov but said he had not been aware who he was, and that anyone could transfer funds to the account of his Internet TV project. He said that Zobov had wanted him to investigate some prosecutors’ corruption.
Lemenov claimed that the SBU is currently investigating Filimonenko and is using this investigation to influence him and make him attack the government’s critics. The SBU could not immediately comment on the claim.
Lemenov also published photos of Filimonenko with flags of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and said he had worked for the party in Luhansk.
“He has always worked for anyone who paid well,” Lemenov said. “An unprincipled person with very little moral integrity and focused exclusively on material profits.”
Filimonenko claimed that the photo with Party of Regions flags had been taken when he protested against the party. However, he did not remember the year and goal of the protest.
Previous attacks
The Shabunin case follows what anti-corruption activists view as a concerted campaign to threaten the Anti-Corruption Action Center.
Ukraine’s tax police, an agency that was supposed to be liquidated in January, opened a criminal case against the Anti-Corruption Action Center, the watchdog said on Aug. 2.
In April a group of protesters held a rally against Shabunin near his house in Kyiv. Radio Liberty subsequently published possible evidence of the SBU’s involvement in organizing the protest.
The SBU denied organizing the protest, but admitted that one of its employees had been present near Shabunin’s house. The service said it had fired the employee.
In February Daria Kaleniuk, the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, was threatened with charges by the National Agency for Preventing Corruption for paying Hr 9,841 ($378) to lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko for lectures on fighting corruption.
In 2016 prosecutors started an investigation against the Anti-Corruption Action Center for alleged embezzlement of grant money that the center had received from the U.S. government. The case was closed, however, after the U.S. embassy denied the allegations.
The Anti-Corruption Action Center and Shabunin have also been targeted in several investigations in Ukrainian and Western media as part of what the center believes to be a smear campaign by the government.
Diash case
In what the government’s critics saw as another sign of political repression, Anzhelina Diash, a member of the Femen protest group, was charged with document forgery on Aug. 15.
In July she was also charged with hooliganism for protesting against Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko and baring her breasts at Lukashenko’s meeting with Poroshenko. If convicted, Diash can be sentenced to two to five years in prison.
Yevhen Zakharov from the Kharkiv Human Rights Group told the Kyiv Post that Diash’s arrest was the first time that he remebers in recent years that such a harsh penalty was being imposed on a peaceful activist.
