The people’s deputies of Ukraine and the members of the inter-faction union UKROP Vitaliy Kupriy, Oleksandr Dubinin and Andriy Denysenko appealed to the Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, Director of NABU Artem Sytnyk and Deputy Prosecutor General Nazar Holodnytskiy with a statement on criminal offense committed by the MP, the first deputy chairman of the parliamentary faction of Petro Poroshenko Bloc Igor Kononenko. This statement was reasoned by the facts of Igor Kononenko’s abuse of power articulated by the Minister of Economic Development and Trade Aivaras Abromavicius. The member of UKROP political council Vitaliy Kupriy has informed about it on his Facebook page.
“Aivaras Abromavicius has stated about his being under pressure and illegal influence, as well as he has confirmed Igor Kononenko’s blocking the work of the Ministry, and therefore the minister decided to resign,” wrote the MP and added that this statement gave reasonable grounds to believe that MP Kononenko had committed abuse of power, and this is a crime under Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
“He (Igor Kononenko. - Ed.) forced the minister to appoint “his people” to the top positions at the Ministry and state-owned companies,” wrote Vitaliy Kupriy and explained that this confirms corruption component in his actions, “that caused grave consequences for the public interest. This crime is qualified under Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and is punishable with imprisonment for up to six years”.
In a joint statement, the members of UKROP asked the Director of NABU Atrem Sytnyk to add immediately the relevant information to the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigation and to start to investigate this case. “In order the investigation could be effective the Prosecutor General Shokin must immediately file a request to the Parliament asking to deprive Igor Kononeko of his parliamentary immunity,” considers the member of UKROP political council.
According to the MP Kupriy, this will give the opportunity to carry out search operations (surveillance, interception of communications, etc.) as well as to search certain premises. On this basis, there should be formed a well-grounded base of evidence proving his criminal activity, that will be used for the submission of the request on Igor Kononeko’s arrest to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
“If the investigation is not carried out according to the specified procedure and Kononenko retains his immunity, this investigation will be another fiction of Sytnyk’s agency. And then the criminals will not be punished, and citizens of Ukraine will not know about the real extent of corruption in Poroshenko’s team,” said Vitaliy Kupriy.
