Photo from UNIAN
The NABU director says the Bureau never closed criminal cases against the former ecology minister.
Statements coming from the Prosecutor General's Office claiming the National Anti-corruption Bureau closed criminal cases launched against former minister of ecology Mykola Zlochevsky are nothing but "manipulation," according to NABU Director Artem Sytnyk.
The NABU chief says the Bureau never closed criminal cases against the former official, Hromadske reports.
“Unfortunately, the Zlochevsky case is yet another manipulation by the Prosecutor General’s Office. That's because in a number of cases involving Zlochevsky which, indeed, had been transferred to NABU, no decisions have ever been taken by detectives on their closure. Now these cases are being investigated, and I cannot predict the consequences of the probe because it depends on the level of cooperation between detectives and prosecutors," said Sytnyk.
Earlier, Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko said that the PGO was trying to "reanimate" the Zlochevsky case, noting that one case concerning the plundering of state resources was transferred to NABU, where, according to head of the Special Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office, Nazar Kholodnytsky, it was closed as NABU detectives performed no investigative actions.
As reported by UNIAN, in June 2018, the Solomensky District Court of Kyiv resumed the investigation against former Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, Mykola Zlochevsky. Thus, the court overturned the decision of the Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office of August 1, 2017 on the closure of the proceedings.
Zlochevsky fled from Ukraine in late 2014 after the PGO launched a probe into his "illegal enrichment." In January 2015, the PGO put Zlochevsky on wanted list. However, in the fall of 2016, Zlochevsky was taken off the wanted list after the PGO submitted a relevant motion.
In December 2016, reports came claiming Zlochevsky met in Vienna with Ihor Kononenko, an MP from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, while the latter refuted the allegation.