Foreign Minister of Belarus Vladimir Makei has said that he has no information on the whereabouts of former Defense Minister of Ukraine Mykhailo Yezhel.
“I do not have the data on what his status is and where he is,” the minister said in Kyiv on Friday answering a question about the possibility of handing Yezhel over to Kyiv.
Makei stressed that this issue is within the competence not of the Foreign Ministry, but of law enforcement officers.
Yezhel is suspected of misusing public office and assisting a third party from 2011 to 2012. He issued four separate tasks paid for by budget resources not paid to the organizations which carried them out (commercial entities were contracted to provide food services to Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel). These actions cost the state about Hr 43 million and had serious consequences.
According to law-enforcement agencies, Yezhel has been put on the Ukrainian government’s wanted list and steps have been taken to put him on the international wanted list. Kyiv’s Pechersky District Court authorized a special pre-trial investigation of a criminal case involving Yezhel. The court has authorized his arrest and transfer to a court for determining pre-trial detention pending trial.
On March 14, 2016, Ukrainian Deputy Prosecutor General and Chief Military Prosecutor Anatoliy Matios said Yezhel had been convalescing in a Belarusian military hospital. “If Yezhel is in territory of another state and, according to official information, is sick, there is no other choice under law but to wait for him to recover. We are not able to follow up on this case in Belarus,” Matios said.
Matios said Yezhel is wanted for questioning about his decision to green-light the sale of army property in 2011. “The decision made by the then defense minister resulted in the unlawful sale of two Tu-95MS strategic bombers to a legal entity. The state lost more than Hr 24 million as a result. The aircraft and aircraft parts were seized before they could be sold to Russia,” the military prosecutor said.
