NABU prepares draft notice of suspicion on episode involving ex-minister Zlochevsky

Detectives from the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine have prepared a draft notice of suspicion involving one episode of a case in which Ukraine’s ex-Ecology and Natural Resources Minister Mykola Zlochevsky is a subject, NABU Director Artem Sytnyk has said.

“In one of the episodes of the case [involving Zlochevsky] detectives prepared a draft notice of suspicion. It is now with the Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO),” Sytnyk said at a briefing in Kyiv on Feb. 8.

The bureau chief said he believes the draft notice to be grounded.

“I hope it will be approved by SAPO,” he said.

Zlochevsky was Ukraine’s Ecology and Natural Resources Minister under the government headed by ex-Prime Minister Mykola Azarov from July 2010 through April 2012.

At the end of 2014 he left Ukraine, and at the start of 2015 it became known that Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) had put him on the wanted list on suspicion of embezzlement (Part 3 of Article 368-2 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code).

The PGO investigated several cases in which Zlochevsky was a subject and in 2015 and 2016 turned them over to NABU.

In January 2017, Burisma, a privately owned natural gas producer, announced the closure in Ukraine of all procedural and judicial actions against Zlochevsky, the group’s president, and the operating companies of the Burisma Group.

Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko in February 2018 said the PGO was not involved in the investigation of criminal proceedings in which Zlochevsky was a defendant, but was prepared to assist anti-corruption agencies in investigating the cases.

NABU said it was looking into possible abuses of the ministry at the time Zlochevsky headed it and that it had received a case from the PGO in late 2015. According to the investigators, abuses occurred during the Ecology Ministry’s procurement in 2011 of remote sensing devices at the expense of budget funds.

On Feb. 1, 2018, information appeared in the media that Zlochevsky returned to Ukraine.

On Jan. 23, the PGO called Zlochevsky in for investigative and procedural actions in criminal proceedings No. 12013220540000400, dated Jan. 31, 2013, on the grounds of the crimes provided for by Part 1 of Article 255, Part 5 of Article 191, Part 3 of Article 209 and other articles of Ukraine’s Criminal Code.