Tymoshenko says anti-corruption officers arrived in five minibuses and searched entire party office

Yuliia Tymoshenko, leader of the Batkivshchyna parliamentary faction, has said that the searches at her office began at 21:30 on 13 January, when she was alone in the building. She claimed that anti-corruption officers had arrived in five minibuses, acted without a court warrant and had not allowed her to call a lawyer. They also searched the locked office of Serhii Vlasenko, an MP from her political party.

Source: Tymoshenko during a speech in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) on 14 January

Details: Following the search, Tymoshenko was present at a parliamentary session.

Quote from Tymoshenko: "I want to completely refute all these groundless, unproven accusations. Yesterday at 21:30 I was alone in the office. There was no security, no outsiders, no one at all. At 21:30, a huge number of people burst in wearing gear and carrying weapons. They arrived in five minibuses. What were they going to seize with five minibuses – more than 30 people – from a person with no guards who was simply in her own office?"

Details: Tymoshenko said she had been told that a search would be conducted, but no documents authorising it had been presented.

"The head of the group said: 'There are no documents and none are needed, because these are special investigative actions that require nothing.' He only showed me an extract from the Unified Register on his phone," the MP claimed.

She added that she had asked to be allowed to call a lawyer, but was supposedly told: "No lawyer – we'll conduct the searches immediately."

"All the people who were in the office – just staff – were locked in. Everyone without exception had their phones taken away, everything they had, with no explanations. Then this massive group of men – more than 30 of them – began turning the office upside down. They started sweeping all the papers off desks… stuffing them into bags," Tymoshenko said.

"They immediately emptied my bag and took out the phones. They have a small device that they enter proxy codes into, plug in and the code is cracked within minutes. I've had this phone for five years. No one could ever have imagined that my entire life – all my messages, all my confidential conversations – would be exposed. When they rummage through things that have absolutely nothing to do with why they came, it is truly horrifying," the Batkivshchyna faction leader added.

She also said that anti-corruption officers had carried out searches in the office belonging to a party colleague of hers, Serhii Vlasenko, which was locked as the MP is currently attending the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

"You know that Vlasenko heads the temporary parliamentary commission on violations by law enforcement agencies. I said he is away at PACE and that when he returns, they can come and conduct a search. They told me: 'Hand over the key, because if you don't, we will break down the door and do whatever we need to do.' In the end, we somehow found the key, opened the office, they went in, turned the whole office upside down and took all his flash drives and everything else that was there – they seized everything," Tymoshenko said.

Background:

• On the evening of Tuesday 13 January, NABU and SAPO reported that they had uncovered corruption involving the leader of a parliamentary faction. Sources told Ukrainska Pravda that the case concerns Yuliia Tymoshenko.
• The anti-corruption bodies stated that Tymoshenko had been exposed for allegedly offering unlawful benefits to several MPs from other factions in exchange for voting "for" or "against" specific draft laws.
• The case has been classified under Article 369.4 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
• On the morning of 14 January, sources in political circles told Ukrainska Pravda that anti-corruption agencies had served Yuliia Tymoshenko with a notice of suspicion.

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