You're reading: Prosecutors demand emails of Novoye Vremya journalist

Yet another journalist in Ukraine is facing pressure from law enforcement.

Ukrainian prosecutors have demanded that investigative journalist Ivan Verstyuk give them access to his emails, according to the decision of Kyiv Pechersk District Court published on Feb. 18 by magazine Novoye Vremya, one of the publications Verstyuk works for.

Prosecutors want to see Verstyuk’s conversations because back in 2016 Novoye Vremya published a story by him about a former deputy general prosecutor of Kyiv Oblast, Alexander Korniyets. Entitled “Brilliant Daughter,” the story reveals how Korniyets, earning only $7,600 a year, managed to pay 120,000 pounds a year for his daughter to study at a school in the United Kingdom.

Although Korniyets was fired right away, the prosecutors are still investigating his case, and they claim Verstyuk’s story, and his source in particular, breached the confidentiality of this investigation. The journalist based his story on a report by the British National Crime Agency. The report had been sent exclusively to the Prosecutor General’s Office, but someone there leaked it to the journalist.

If Verstyuk does not give up his email conversations — hundreds of documents, including ones from anonymous sources — the Prosecutor General’s Office can conduct a search of the Novoye Vremya newsroom, the court says. According to Ukrainian and European laws, however, the journalists have a right to use and protect confidential sources.

The case shows the Prosecutor General’s Office is uneasy with working under the eye of an independent press, thinks Verstyuk.

“I assume they don’t like me getting documents that prove the luxurious lifestyle of an ex-deputy general prosecutor of Kyiv Oblast, Alexander Korniyets, and his daughter. So there they are, pressuring us,” Verstyuk told the Kyiv Post.

Prosecutors have already interrogated the journalist in connection with the article, in June 2017.

Verstyuk said he thought the actions of the prosecutors were “obvious” pressure on the press and on the freedom of speech. If they are allowed to read the e-mail of an investigative journalist, it may damage the very freedom of investigative journalism in the future, he said.

This is the second time a Novoye Vremya journalist has been under pressure to reveal their anonymous sources. In August 2018, the same Pechersk District Court gave the Prosecutor General’s Office access to journalist Kristina Berdynskykh’s phone to trace her locations, conversations, and numbers dialed for the period from February to August 2018. (Another journalist, Natalie Sedletska, the chief editor of Radio Liberty’s Schemes investigative television show, also was ordered by the court to provide data from her phone at the same time.)

That case triggered strong criticism from Ukrainian civic activists, journalists and Western officials. The Prosecutor General’s Office denied it intended to restrict freedom of speech.

Verstyuk’s colleague Berdynskyk appealed, and on Sept. 26, the Kyiv Court of Appeal partially upheld her complaint. However, since Nov. 12 further hearings of the case have been put off three times. The next hearing is scheduled for May 6. The rulings involving both Novoye Vremya journalists were made by the same judge, Volodymyr Karaban.

Novoye Vremya Chief Editor Vitalii Sych said in comments to the Kyiv Post that prosecutors have the wrong priorities — instead of investigating corruption, they’re investigating how journalists do their work, he said. Besides, the court decision is illegal, and so the journalists will contest the claim in Ukraine, and if unsuccessful, they are to file an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights, he said.

“We are an irritant to many people, including the prosecutors, and that’s why they pay such a close attention to us,” Sych said.

“But I think they’d do better to focus on finding corrupt officials, rather than investigating those who fight corruption.”