NABU Public Oversight Council criticizes detectives for the case of acquitted ex-Minister Omelian

The NABU Public Control Council criticized the actions of detectives in the criminal proceedings against former Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan, which concerned the order on port dues, UNN reports. 

In June 2020, the NABU served Omelyan with a notice of suspicion. According to the detectives, the state budget of Ukraine lost more than UAH 30 million because the former Minister of Infrastructure issued an order to reduce port fees.

I remember this case clearly, and we were surprised that the Bureau interpreted the events of the case extremely narrowly. They took into account that the state budget had lost money from port dues, but did not take into account how much money was received because we became competitive in the market and attracted more carriers. They also did not take into account the effect of other regulations, besides the budget, and collegial decisions on this issue in general

The Council noted that NABU detectives failed to see the bigger picture, which led to a waste of time and resources investigating the case.

"A small reminder for the NABU: everything should be viewed in context. In this case, the High Anti-Corruption Court acquitted Volodymyr Omelyan and found him not guilty. Even after the NABU appealed. The case was finally closed in 2023. The question is: was this case worth the time spent by detectives, who are not many anyway?" the Civil Oversight Council says.

Former Minister Omelyan himself believes that the detectives were one-sided in their treatment of the case against him due to political bias.

"I hope that over time it will be properly investigated: who, to whom, when and for what purpose gave an illegal instruction to initiate any case against me in order to force me not to criticize the authorities," Omelyan said.

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The NABU has been practicing statements about "high-profile exposures" of top officials. But such cases do not always have a legal basis, and sometimes even end in acquittals.

This seems to be the case with another case against the former minister, Mykola Solsky. In April, he was accused of seizing landthat allegedly belonged to the National Academy of Sciences. 

In order for NABU's accusations to be confirmed, they first need to prove that the land really belonged to the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences - but there is no data or official documents. Moreover, the representatives of the agrarian academy themselves say that there were no documents for the land. As it turned out, the former minister's declarations for the period from 2020 to 2023 do not contain a single land plot in Sumy region.

And although during this time anti-corruption activists were unable to provide clear evidence of Mykola Solskyi's "guilt," the loud accusations did their job - he resigned as minister. In addition, the NABU's statements and the minister's resignation caused the disruption of negotiations with the Poles on border unblocking.

The Kharkiv Human Rights Group called the NABU's statements against former Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solsky a violation of the presumption of innocence. The human rights activists also believe that the real reason for the prosecution of Solsky is the desire to stop his efforts to create a land market in Ukraine.