Scandal in the NABU: Head of State is not going to turn a blind eye to problems in the bureau

After his high-profile dismissal, former NABU deputy director Gizo Uglava focused on a lawsuit against the bureau and cooperation with the NACP regarding his former head, Semen Kryvonos. He announced this on his Facebook page, UNN reports.

As of today, my priority is to work on a lawsuit and to cooperate with the NACP

Uglava served as the first deputy director of the NABU for more than 9 years. On September 3, 2024, he was dismissed from the bureau, the official reason being that he had violated the oath of office and the rules of ethical behavior. However, Uglava stated that he would appeal this decision in court.

It is worth noting that a few months before his dismissal, he managed to make a number of high-profile statements that exposed potential problems in the management and investigation processes of anti-corruption detectives.

Uglava accused the NABU leadership, in particular Director Semen Kryvonos, of pressure to force him to resign. He also filed a complaint with the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption against the NABU director and received official whistleblower status.

The then-deputy director of the NABU has repeatedly hinted that decisions in the bureau are made under the influence of external factors, not on the basis of the law. Among the individuals and institutions that he believed exerted this pressure were activists of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC) and the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy, who, as Uglava noted, had previously worked for the AntAC.

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Allegations of NABU's bias and political bias have been made many times before, but the anti-corruption activists have not paid attention to them.

A good example is the case of anti-corruption activists against former Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan. He has repeatedly claimed that detectives were one-sided in their treatment of the case against him due to political bias. Both cases against him collapsed in the courts, but NABU did not officially apologize to the former minister for illegal criminal prosecution and damage to his business reputation.

There is also concern about violations of the presumption of innocence by the NABU, as in the cases against Mykola Solskyi and MP Serhiy Kuzminykh.

The Kharkiv Human Rights Group also criticized NABU for statements that violate the presumption of innocence. They believe that the real reason for Solsky's prosecution is the reform of the land market in Ukraine.