NABUgate: Prosecutor General's Office opens criminal proceedings against Kryvonos detectives for illegal wiretapping of lawyers

The Prosecutor General's Office has opened criminal proceedings under No. 42024000000001413 on the facts of illegal entry into the premises of lawyers, wiretapping and abuse of power by employees of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP), UNN reports.

The information was entered into the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations under three articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine:

- Part 2 of Art. 162 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - illegal entry into a dwelling or other property of a person and illegal search therein committed by officials. NABU detectives entered the lawyers' premises without proper legal grounds and searched them.

- Part 1 of Art. 365 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - abuse of power or authority. This refers to the deliberate actions of law enforcement officers that clearly exceeded their legal authority and caused significant damage to the legally protected rights of citizens and legal entities.

- Part 2 of Art. 397 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - obstruction of defense counsel or violation of attorney-client privilege.

It is alleged that NABU and SAPO officials used their official position to interfere with the activities of lawyers. In particular, they illegally installed listening devices, which allowed them to secretly collect information about the communication of lawyers with clients.

Yesterday, representatives of the Committee for the Protection of Advocates' Rights and Guarantees of Advocacy of the National Bar Association Bohdan Kushnyr and Andriy Voznyuk reported new violations by NABU detectives during the searches. They believe that the main purpose of the searches is to encroach on the attorney-client privilege and information about clients who are under investigation by NABU itself.

"Can you imagine the degree of our surprise when we arrived at the search site and learned that there was a court order to conduct the relevant investigative actions. Thus, the need to "notify the bar representatives in advance" was blatantly ignored.

Later, the detectives said that they would check all the lawyers' files, even those of the clients and lawyers who were not listed in the court order. In response to the remark that all this is a direct violation of the rights and guarantees of the practice of law, the detective said that he understood everything and consciously decided to go beyond the ruling.

The violation of the attorney-client privilege is even more interesting. Most of the cases handled by the lawyers who were in this office are cases under the NABU's investigation. And several detectives are also investigating these cases. Therefore, we can assume that in this way, in violation of the current requirements of the law, the detectives gained access to the lawyer's file to learn about the line of defense in other criminal proceedings.

In general, I can inform you that all violations have been recorded and will be reflected in the comments to the search report," Bohdan Kushnyr wrote in his FB post. 

As a reminder, the Ukrainian National Bar Association appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office and the State Bureau of Investigation with a statement about the commission of a gross crime by NABU detectives who installed a wiretap in the office of Kyiv lawyers. The Association sees the actions of the NABU detectives as a violation of a number of articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Their appeal states that the detectives not only wiretapped and entered the lawyers' office in the center of the capital, but also conducted illegal searches there "before the investigating judge issued a warrant without proper grounds," which grossly violated the rights and legitimate interests of the lawyers. Moreover, as noted in the letter, the NABU detectives were well aware that they were entering the lawyers' office, as this address is official and registered in the register of lawyers. 

Earlier it was reported that the NABU had set up a wiretap in the office of Kyiv lawyers. The "wiretap" was installed in the meeting room, where the lawyers discussed defense strategies with their clients. Moreover, the clients whose conversations were recorded were under investigation by NABU itself.