Anti-Corruption Action Centre Claims Harassment by the Prosecutor General’s Office

Activists of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre claim that the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine continues harassing them. In particular, investigators from the Department for Investigation and Supervision of Criminal Proceedings on Regarding Public Service and Property [Ukr.: Департамент з розслідування та нагляду у кримінальних провадженнях у сферах державної служби та власності] (the so-called ‘Kononenko-Hranovskyi department’, named after the two MPs from the President’s Petro Poroshenko Bloc, who are said to be ‘curating’ it) asked the Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv to grant permission to access "the possessions and documents of the organization".

This request is registered in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions. "We don’t know exactly what information the investigators from the General Prosecutor’s Office are trying to access, as they have already received the documents from the bank, as well as from several ministries. All these actions are just an attempt to block our activities," Olena Shcherban, a lawyer for the Anti-Corruption Action Centre NGO said.

The Anti-Corruption Action Centre thinks that the actions of prosecutors and investigators are against the law, so the lawyers of the Centre filed a criminal report to the General Prosecutor’s Office. "However, the General Prosecutor’s Office refused to register our appeal, and the activists have filed a protest against the lack of action of the prosecutors in Pecherskyi district court. The court has not set a date to hear the case yet, — Anti-Corruption Action Centre representatives say.

Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv earlier allowed investigators from the General Prosecutor’s Office to access, with the right to confiscate, the possessions and documents of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre, including documents protected by bank secrecy.

Source: Ukrayinska Pravda, Tetiana Kusok