Ukrainian Mayor Hennadiy Kernes and MP Mykhailo Dobkin are suspected of creating an organized crime group and embezzlement of state property using their official position, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said.
“They [Kernes and Dobkin] are suspects. They are suspected of creating an organized crime group (under the Article 255 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code), which aimed at embezzling of state property (Article 191) using an official position (Article 464),” he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Sept. 15.
He said that these criminal schemes were plotted in Kharkiv City Council, alongside Kernes and Dobkin, top-ranking officials of Kharkiv Mayor’s Office are involved in the case, and a total amount of defendants in the case is over 120 people.
“I believe, all these people are suspects,” he said.
He said earlier that the people’s deputies are involved in this case, and if the facts proving their guilt are established, the applications on depriving them of their immunity will be introduced to the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada.
“We are looking not for diamonds and gold, but for the land deeds. We need to prove that the Kharkiv government, according to us, created the organized crime group and in collusion with the various departments’ heads prepared the documents on fictitious housing cooperatives, which they allotted the municipal land to. Then the people linked to the criminals become the happy owners of these lands, the alleged members of the cooperatives,” he said.
