The ECHR will consider AntAC’s appeal against classification of court decision regarding Yanukovych’s money

The European Court of Human Rights has taken into consideration the appeal of the Anti-Corruption Action Center against illegal classification of Kramatorsk Court’s decision. According to it, 1.5 billion USD of the escaped President Viktor Yanukovych were allegedly confiscated.

In October 2017, the Anti-Corruption Action Center sued the Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko and the prosecutor of the ATO forces Kostyantyn Kulyk, who classified the known decision of Kramatorsk Court.

“We consider classification of the entire text of court’s decision to be illegal. And we demand to cancel these decisions. The decision should be made public in the Unified Register of Court Decisions according to the Law”, stated Daria Kaleniuk, AntAC’s Executive director.

“We are convinced that the decision was illegally classified in order to hide from society the fact how these 1.5 billion USD were stolen during Yanukovych’s time. And who from current and former top officials were accomplices of the crime”, adds Kaleniuk.

AntAC was forced to withdraw appeals to the Prosecutor General Lutsenko. The appeal to prosecutor Kulyk the courts refused to consider per se.

It is not surprising because the decision is very scandalous. It is illegally classified and it hides involvement of President Poroshenko’s associates in the scheme.

The court refused AntAC even to open the proceeding regarding the appeal against the decision of the prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulyk, who had classified the decision for the first time.

The decision was also left in force by courts of higher instance. They explained it by the fact that AntAC is not the party of the criminal proceeding and has no grounds to appeal against the decision in the Administrative Court.

The Anti-Corruption Action Center had not agreed with such conclusions of Ukrainian courts and sent the appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

It should be noted that Yuriy Lutsenko considers confiscation of 1.5 billion USD of “Yanukovych’s money” as one of main results of his work at the position of the Prosecutor General.

Even the “social” advertising how Lutsenko returned to the budget money which were stolen by Yanukovych’s organized criminal group was made. It was published on the national TV and radio.

However, the text of court decision, according to which money was confiscated, remained under seven seals.

For reference:

On March 28, 2017, Kramatorsk City Court in Donetsk oblast in court case No. 234/4135/17 has made a decision, which approved the deal on recognition of guilt by citizen Kashkin A.P. in committing money laundering and creating the criminal organization.

According to statements in mass media, as well as statements of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, the same decision imposed special confiscation of funds and bonds of internal state loan of Ukraine for the total amount of 1.5 billion USD, by transferring them to the state budget of Ukraine.

This was the first case of special confiscation in the history of Ukraine with unprecedented amount of money.

However, the text of scandalous decision was not disclosed in the Unified Register of Court Decisions due to its classification by the decision of military prosecutor of the ATO forces Kulyk and later by Lutsenko’s decision to classify information of the decision as the state secret.

In October 2017, the Anti-Corruption Action Center appealed against the number of decisions of the Administrative Court according to which the decision was classified. And it demanded to publish the decision in the Unified Register of Court Decisions.

The court took all AntAC’s appeals into consideration, except one. It was the appeal against decision of the prosecutor of the ATO forces Kulyk, according to which the decision was not made public immediately.

Later, in November 2017, at the first court trial, the AntAC had to refuse from the rest of appeals, namely, canceling Lutsenko’s decision regarding classification of the full text of decision, actions and inactivity of state institutions (enterprise Information Judicial Systems and State Judicial Administration) regarding not making it public.

The reason for refusal was adding by the court representatives of offshore companies, nominal owners of confiscated money, to AntAC’s appeal.

AntAC is convinced that companies were added to the trial solely with the purpose of discrediting public activists. Thus, the organization was forced to withdraw its appeal.

In January 2018, the document, which may be the decision of Kramatorsk Court, has been published by the TV channel Al Jazeera.

The company ICU is the subject of this document. It acted as the broker in purchase of bonds for offshore companies, whose accounts were arrested, and later 1.5 billion USD were confiscated. At that time, the head of the ICU company was Valeriya Gontareva.

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