Members of Parliament from the People’s Front parliamentary faction and some Cabinet members have vowed their support for former MP Mykola Martynenko and announced plans to ask the court to release him against their guarantees.
“I have already given my guarantees for Yuriy Syrotiuk (member of the Svoboda Party). He attended all court hearings. I think Mykola Martynenko won’t let us down if he is released [for the period of the trial] against our guarantees,” Sports Minister Ihor Zhdanov told journalists outside the courthouse on Friday.
Infrastructure Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Omelyan, as well as parliamentarians Mykola Kniazhytsky, Pavlo Pynzenyk, Georgiy Logvinskiy also plan to ask the court to release their former colleague, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.
Besides, Education and Science Minister Lilia Hrynevych and a number of other parliamentarians from the People’s Front faction, in addition to the aforementioned ones, arrived at the court before hearings on preventive measures for Martynenko.
As reported, on April 20, agents from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) jointly with prosecutors of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) detained two persons – ex-MP, former head of the parliamentary committee on fuel and energy complex Mykola Martynenko and one of his alleged accomplices – on suspicion of committing crimes under Part 1 of Article 255 (the creation of a criminal group) and Part 5 of Article 191 (misappropriation, embezzlement or conversion of property by abuse of official post committed in respect of an especially gross amount, or by an organized group) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
They are suspected of embezzlement of VostGOK’s $17.28 million through illegal conclusion and fulfillment of a contract to sell and buy the ore producer’s uranium concentrate via an Austrian-based intermediate firm, Steuermann.
The detainees were notified of the suspicion; the issue of choosing a measure of restraint is being decided upon.
Martynenko himself said that the charges against him were made up by order of NABU Director Artem Sytnyk as a smear campaign to divert the public’s attention from NABU failures.
