Investigation should establish whether the delay in the sale of Medvedchuk's yacht was due to negligence of the head of the Duma's ARMA - human rights activist

The investigation should establish whether the delay in the sale of the yacht of former traitor MP Viktor Medvedchuk by the head of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA), Olena Duma, was due to official negligence. If there is evidence of her guilt, Duma should be held criminally liable. This opinion was expressed by human rights activist Eduard Bagirov in an exclusive commentary to UNN.

When there is property or other assets on the balance sheet or under operational control, and  when such cases occur (as with the delay in the sale of Medvedchuk's yacht - ed.), then of course everyone, like me, has a question: why couldn't they have drafted a bill in six months that could have been passed by the Verkhovna Rada and acted in accordance with the law to sell seized assets abroad? That is, I think that there is at least official negligence here. And unfortunately, ARMA does not fully fulfill its main function. I hope that in some time - two or three months - this will be enough for the investigation to find evidence of either innocence or guilt of the ARMA leadership

He added that the Criminal Code of Ukraine provides for criminal liability  for failure to perform or improper performance by officials of their official duties, which caused great damage to the interests of the state or individual citizens of Ukraine.

In this case, we can argue that if there was an opportunity to replenish the budget of Ukraine by hundreds of millions of dollars through the sale of this asset, and either the head or one of his subordinates failed to fulfill their duties, they violated this article of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and this issue should be considered by our law enforcement agencies as part of criminal proceedings. If enough evidence is collected that the Duma or anyone else in this institution has failed to fulfill their duties and has harmed the interests of the state, then the article of this criminal code provides not only for the deprivation of office, but also for imprisonment

According to him, like millions of Ukrainian citizens, he is interested in ARMA's ability to sell property confiscated in connection with violations of Ukrainian legislation as quickly as possible and at the highest prices.  Bagirov emphasized that the Duma, as the head of the ARMA, should do everything to ensure that the property on the Agency's balance sheet is sold.

"Regarding the activities of ARMA, the previous leaders who were appointed have already had several criminal cases opened against them. And I am not surprised that ARMA is not working effectively, and the ARMA leadership is not fulfilling their official duties, unfortunately. Therefore, as a citizen of Ukraine, I am also appealing through your media outlet to the relevant law enforcement agencies of Ukraine to initiate criminal proceedings in order to put an end to whether there was a violation of the law or not," Bagirov said.

Context

The ARMA has recently been in the spotlight for losing the Royal Romance yacht, which belonged to former MP Viktor Medvedchuk, a suspect in high treason. Despite the yacht's arrest by a Croatian court and its transfer to Ukraine for sale, ARMA has not been able to sell the asset in two years.

Having investigated the topic, managed to find out that the main delay in the sale of the yacht of the traitorous ex-MP was due to the fact that the new head of the ARMA, Olena Duma, had been preparing changes to the legislation on the sale of foreign assets for almost six months. At the same time, at the time of her appointment to the ARMA, the Prosecutor General's Office, together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had already prepared a draft of the changes, but Duma categorically rejected it.

In this regard, the ARMA only launched a tender on March 20, 2024, to select a seller to sell the yacht, and a month later it finally selected the winner. It is worth noting that the selection of the winner took place a month before the expiration of the maximum period of seizure of this asset, which made its sale virtually impossible.

Former MP Ihor Mosiychuk believes that the head of the ARMA acted in the interests of Medvedchuk by delaying the sale of his yacht. He calls for an investigation into whether this was intentional or due to incompetence.