The wide resonance caused by the attempt to subordinate the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine directly to the Office of the Prosecutor General has drawn the attention of society and international partners to the work of this body. A closer look revealed a number of violations of the law committed by detectives. To correct the situation, there must be clear and effective control over NABU. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive comment to UNN by political technologist Oleh Posternak.
Any law enforcement agency must be under certain procedural control. Therefore, excuse me, when there was an idea to subordinate NABU to the Office of the Prosecutor General and to polish some accountability issues, to normalize them in accordance with European practice, a huge outcry arose in Ukraine, a campaign to protect NABU and criticize the authorities for this decision. But its idea, its grounds for this were absolutely reasonable. Now we will just be sorting things out, when the attention of society, international players, and the authorities is drawn to other law enforcement officers, to the activities of NABU, and it turns out that there are huge, large-scale violations, there are questions about the activities of these bodies, etc.
According to him, the root of the problem lies in imperfect legislation.
"If we don't want to allow similar things to happen with NABU now, we need to change the legislation," the expert believes.
In addition, in his opinion, clear and effective control over the Anti-Corruption Bureau is necessary.
"All these internal control departments that exist in this institution do not work and are not effective. On the contrary, they mostly perform only a formal decorative role," explained Oleh Pasternak.
He added that in NABU, as in other law enforcement agencies, the human factor also plays a role.
"These are not holy angels. They, like representatives of other law enforcement agencies, can abuse their official position, engage in black schemes, affairs, be involved in issues, in criminal and administrative offenses. At one time, Sytnyk, having an administrative case of corruption, headed NABU, being actually a corrupt official. Such a nonsense is, in principle, very characteristic of this body and now. Such things need to be corrected," Oleh Pasternak believes.
According to him, clear control over the body would help minimize the risks of new scandals related to violations by NABU detectives.
"We do not live in an ideal world, and there will always be questions for NABU, and for the SBU, and for the SBI, and for the BEB. But a lot depends on the leadership of this institution, how they treat such things, cover up, stand at the top of these pyramids of abuse and use of official position," Oleh Pasternak noted.
Let's add
One of the striking examples of law violations by NABU detectives is the case against Oleksiy Fedorychev, the owner of the two largest terminals "TIS-Zerno" and "TIS-Dobryva" in the port of "Pivdennyi". NABU has been investigating this case for a decade, but during this time, the detectives have not been able to gather evidence of the businessman's guilt. The criminal proceedings against him are rather an attempt to raid the terminals with the help of NABU, which has dragged on for too long.
In fact, for 10 years they have not been able to serve the businessman with a notice of suspicion or choose a pre-trial restraint for him. And regular attempts to seize property, although they end in failure every time, significantly hinder the conduct of critically important business during the war, related to ensuring food security.
A clear indication that the case against Fedorychev is a business dispute involving anti-corruption law enforcement officers is the decision of the court of the Principality of Monaco, where the businessman has long resided. Monaco judges refused to serve Oleksiy Fedorychev with a notice of suspicion, stating that his case was a commercial dispute, not a criminal one.
"...the information set out in the requests does not allow to determine the nature of the case as criminal, which enables the competent authorities of the Principality of Monaco to conclude: the essence of the case largely concerns facts that underlie a dispute of a purely economic nature," the decision stated.
Judges of the High Anti-Corruption Court held a similar opinion, finding no grounds for seizing Fedorychev's property or imposing a pre-trial restraint. Moreover, they even refused to extend the pre-trial investigation period after it had expired.
However, the ingenuity of NABU detectives is striking. Instead of accepting defeat and admitting that the case was fabricated, they formally transferred it for investigation to the National Police. Upon joining the investigative group, the first thing NABU officers did was to force their colleagues in the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv to push through a decision to extend the investigation period.
Not getting what they wanted in the HACC, the detectives are trying to push through the necessary decisions in the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv. So everything indicates that NABU is overly interested in the terminals in the port of "Pivdennyi".
Recall
No less spectacular were the scandals involving NABU officials. In particular, this refers to former detective Taras Likunov, who investigated a case concerning "Ukrzaliznytsia", and then took a position in this company after being dismissed from the position of a person involved in criminal proceedings. That is, in this way, the detective actually "freed up" a place for himself, which, according to experts, is a direct violation of the Law "On Prevention of Corruption" and a conflict of interest.
In addition, the latest high-profile scandal involved cases against NABU detective Ruslan Magamedrasulov, who, together with his father, a citizen of the Russian Federation, according to the investigation, was engaged in cannabis trafficking with Dagestan. He is accused of treason. In addition, he is suspected of abuse of influence for illegal tax manipulations of Ukrainian enterprises totaling 30 million hryvnias, for which he was to receive 900 thousand hryvnias. The NABU detective was to influence the bodies of the State Tax Service of Ukraine to make illegal decisions to exclude about ten companies from the list of risky ones. This is obvious evidence of corruption in NABU.