NABU director continues to insist on establishing an expert institution at the bureau, despite warnings from foreign partners

Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine Semen Kryvonos continues to insist on creating an expert institution for the bureau, despite warnings from foreign experts that this will not solve the issue of the objectivity of forensic examinations in criminal proceedings investigated by anti-corruption activists, UNN writes.

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"Our priorities for 2024 and 2025 are unchanged. This is what we will work on together with our colleagues, together with international partners. This is the need to create an expert institution at the NABU. And I keep repeating that this is the most important task for the anti-corruption infrastructure. Because the risk of influencing the investigations of the NABU and the SAPO using this tool is extremely high - the risk of leaking information about the appointment of examinations, delaying examinations, distorting their content. And I don't see any logical and adequate explanation why such an institution cannot be created today for investigations in the anti-corruption sphere against top officials," Krivonos said during a briefing on the results of the work of anti-corruption activists in the first half of 2024.

According to him, the second priority is to give detectives the opportunity to listen in on their own.

"The third priority is an independent audit to be held this year. We, the staff of the Bureau and I personally as Director, will fully facilitate this independent audit," said the NABU Director.

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Manipulation of forensic examinations is commonplace for the NABU. In particular, detectives order forensic examinations from their colleagues and acquaintances.

Although NACP records a conflict of interests, it refrains from checking the recorded facts and "turns a blind eye" to such investigations by NABU detectives.

International experts who audited the NABU's activities emphasized that the creation of a criminal institution under the Anti-Corruption Bureau would not solve the issue of the objectivity of examinations in criminal proceedings investigated by detectives.

Often, manipulations by anti-corruption activists with expert examinations play against them. For example, the examinations in the cases of Rotterdam+ and former Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan. According to lawyer Iryna Odynets, the NABU lost in court because during the investigation, detectives in these cases "drew" forensic examinations in friendly private offices, and then unsuccessfully tried to confirm their accusations with them. Volodymyr Omelyan himself also noted that detectives engaged "dubious experts" during the investigation of the case against him.

In addition, NABU recently tried to leak the expert examination in the case against former Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solsky, which they themselves ordered and which was apparently supposed to testify to Solsky's innocence.

Given the repeated facts of such manipulations, the idea of NABU head Semen Kryvonos to create his own expert institution for the bureau looks extremely alarming. In this case, there may be many times more "painted" examinations, and thus NABU investigations may turn into biased persecutions similar to the mass political terror of the Soviet NKVD.