The fifth president of Ukraine, the leader of the European Solidarity Party, Petro Poroshenko has accused the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) of bias.
“Unfortunately, I can’t say that the SBI is a politically unbiased, independent body of investigation … Unfortunately, the weak position of the leadership does not allow talking about impartiality, and I have to state it today,” Poroshenko told reporters in Kyiv on August 12.
According to him, the SBI officers cannot explain how the former deputy head of the presidential administration of Ukraine during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, lawyer Andriy Portnov, knows information about the contents of criminal investigations earlier than he does.
“How any investigative actions are carried out on the instructions of Portnov? How did Portnov and his friends in the incumbent power occupy the SBI and, of course, we will defend ourselves by legal means,” the European Solidarity leader emphasized.
According to Poroshenko, all this is “a vivid confirmation of the revenge that today as a cancer tumor is trying to spread in Ukraine, and precisely in order to demonstrate tonight on Russian channels and on pro-Kremlin channels in Ukraine.”
He noted that, according to Portnov’s request, the SBI is engaged in the so-called “case of seafarers” – it is studying the validity of sending Ukrainian ships to rotate into the Sea of Azov through the Kerch Strait, and is also investigating Poroshenko’s order to counterattack in June 2014, when part of Donbas was liberated.
