Court orders an investigation into the actions of the investigator who may have concealed information on corruption in the Interior Ministry in connection with the case of Mukhtar Ablyazov
On 19 June, 2015, the Pechersky District Court of Kiev satisfied the complaint filed by the Open Dialog Foundation and handed down a decision to initiate criminal proceedings with respect to the Kiev investigator Sergey Khodakovskiy. This person has ignored possible corrupt practices in the Ministry of the Interior in connection with the high-profile case of Kazakh opposition leader Mukhtar Ablyazov.
Mukhtar Ablyazov is a political refugee, and a renowned Kazakh opposition politician. Following a conflict with President Nazarbayev, he was accused of corruption. In cooperation with the Kazakh authorities, Ukraine and Russia also charged Ablyazov with financial crimes and placed him on the international wanted list. Currently, the French government is considering the possibility of extraditing him to Ukraine or Russia. Over the past two years, law enforcement organisations, dozens of members of the European Parliament and the PACE have pointed to the political context of Ablyazov’s case and the inadmissibility of his extradition.
In 2014, the media published correspondence which contained evidence that the Kazakh side, throughthe law firm ‘Ilyashev and Partner’, could have orchestrated the actions of Ukrainian investigation bodies. As a result, on 30 July, 2014, with regard to the irregularities in the case of Ablyazov, a criminal case was initiated against MIA investigator Maksim Melnik. According to documents published in the media, representatives of the Kazakh prosecutor's office held informal meetings with representatives of the GPU, during which they expressed ‘serious concern’ over the case against the inspector, Melnik. The investigation of this case was conducted by an investigator the Prosecutor’s Office of Kiev, Sergey Khodakovskiy.
The Open Dialog Foundation has addressed the Prosecutor's Office with a request that they pay attention to the published data, according to which, on 25 September, 2014, Sergey Khodakovskiy ordered the closure of the criminal case against the investigator of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Mr. Melnik. It is noteworthy that this decision mirrored the document that previously, on 3 September, 2014, had been prepared on the letterhead of the prosecutor's office in Kiev by the firm ‘Ilyashev and Partners’ verbatim. These data indicate that unauthorised persons could have affected the actions of the investigator, Khodakovsky, and drawn up procedural documents for him.
Since such actions are prosecuted under Article 365 of the Criminal Code (‘abuse of power or official authority’), the Open Dialog Foundation appealed to the Prosecutor's Office with a request that all necessary steps are taken in order to investigate into the facts described in the correspondence published in the media.
On 26 May, 2015, the Prosecutor’s Office of Kiev refused to initiate a criminal case, as our complaint ‘did not contain sufficient evidence of the elements of a crime as defined in Article 11 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, in the actions of investigator’. Thus, the prosecutor's office, without conducting an investigation, has stated that no evidence of the elements of a crime can be seen in the actions of the investigator. Now, however, in accordance with the decision of the court, the prosecutor's office in Kiev is obliged to investigate into the evidence, provided by the Open Dialog Foundation.
For more detailed information, please address:
Igor Savchenko – [email protected]
Lyudmyla Kozlovska – [email protected]
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