You're reading: Security chief confirms his son prosecuted EuroMaidan activists (VIDEO)

Vasyl Hrytsak, the newly appointed chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), has confirmed that his son Oleh prosecuted activists of the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.

“Yes, I know about this. I
told him, ‘son, do as your conscience tells you.’ None of the AutoMaidan
activists was imprisoned,” Hrytsak said in a Radio Svoboda article published on
July 2, referring to the car-based protest group.


Earlier Olena Hitlianska, an
SBU spokeswoman,
denied the reports.

Oleh Hrytsak is currently a
deputy of the Svyatoshin district’s top prosecutor in Kyiv, which has prompted
allegations of nepotism. Critics have also argued that he should be fired under
Ukraine’s lustration law, which
envisages dismissing
prosecutors and judges implicated in criminal cases against EuroMaidan
protesters.


Oleh Hrytsak declined to
comment for Radio Svoboda. He was not available when the Kyiv Post called the
Svyatoshin prosecutor’s office.


“We were just Kyiv residents
who protested using cars, and we did it in the most peaceful way,” Oleh
Kravtsov, an AutoMaidan activist whose case was handled by Oleh Hrytsak, told
Radio Svoboda.


He said police had been
impolite when detaining activists, and alleged they had been beaten.


“The prosecutors were trying
to get us illegally detained for two months,” Kravtsov said. “I’m sure that if
there had been an order from above and the EuroMaidan Revolution had not won,
we would be in prison for decades, because prosecutors were fabricating a
terrorism case against us.”


Footage broadcast by Ukraine’s Channel 5 on Jan. 25, 2014 shows Oleh Hrytsak as
a prosecutor at a court hearing against 12 EuroMaidan protesters detained
during clashes with police on Hrushevsky Street in Kyiv.


Oleh Hrytsak prosecuting
EuroMaidan activists at a court hearing in January 2014.


The protesters had been accused of rioting and
assaulting Berkut riot police officers, and were placed under arrest. The
Channel 5 footage also shows a video of riot police officers brutally beating
one of the activists.


Radio Svoboda also reported
that Oleh Hrytsak and Vasyl Hrytsak’s wife Olha co-founded the meat trading
firm Olvia-1 in 2008.


The company is registered at
the same address as construction company Mostobud, which was founded by
businessman Volodymyr Prodivus, a member of ousted President Viktor
Yanukovych’s Party of Regions.


When asked about the business
by Radio Svoboda, Vasyl Hrytsak said they should ask his son.


Another scandal related to the
new SBU appointments concerns
Vitaly Malikov, who became
head of the SBU’s anti-terrorism center last week. He has been accused of supporting Kremlin-backed separatists in Crimea – a claim that the SBU also denies.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected]