A law on Ukraine's SBI was passed two years ago / Photo from http://replyua.net

His nomination was backed by members of the commission for the selection of SBI staff, including deputies, directors of local offices and heads of subdivisions of the SBI central office.

Nine members of the commission unanimously voted for Truba's candidacy.

Truba once headed a special investigations department at the Prosecutor General's Office when Vitaliy Yarema was Ukraine's prosecutor general. After Yarema's resignation, Truba was demoted and shortly resigned. In early 2017, he headed a department at the Sektor Prava (Sector of Law) law firm.

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Among his rivals for the SBI director's position were incumbent Chief Military Prosecutor Anatoliy Matios, head of a PGO department Olha Varchenko, MP from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and ex-SBU security service officer Yuriy Makedon, deputy head of the National Police's criminal investigation department Oleksiy Kharkevych.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine's parliament passed a bill on the SBI on November 12, 2015.

Under the law, the SBI's chief shall be appointed by the president of Ukraine after the prime minister nominates a candidate selected by a selection commission. The SBI's director is authorized to appoint and dismiss his deputies after nomination by the selection commission.

Read alsoUkraine Corruption Prevention Agency employee claims top officials' e-declarations not checkedIn March 2016, Ukraine's Cabinet of Minister approved members of the SBI Staff Selection Commission, which consists of three members from the president, the parliament and the government each.

Poroshenko announced on September 7, 2017, that the SBI director should be appointed before November 20.

The State Bureau of Investigations is authorized to investigate crimes that are currently under the PGO's jurisdiction, namely, crimes committed by high-ranking officials, civil servants, judges and law enforcement officials, except for those that are within the National Anti-corruption Bureau's authority or war crimes.

Right after the announcement of Truba's nomination, Ukrainian journalist and member of NGO Stop Corruption Roman Bochkala posted documents allegedly with the examination results of all candidates for the SBI's director.

"[These are] all candidates' examination results – and what we can see. The winners have got ... the worst assessment. 'An unreliable person (super high risk)' is written beside the names of Truba and Varchenko," he wrote on Facebook on November 16.

According to Bochkala, Truba even applied for a deputy head's position, rather than for that of the SBI's director.

Lawmaker Boryslav Bereza in turn wrote on Facebook that Truba is Serhiy Pashynsky's crony.

Pashynsky is a Member of Parliament from the People's Front parliamentary faction. He is deputy head of the faction and heads the parliament's national security and defense committee.