There is an increasing number of reports in the media about information leaks, as well as controversial cases conducted by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP). This casts great doubt on the impartiality and integrity of this body, raising public doubts about the transparency of its investigations against high-ranking officials.
NABU regularly announces the detection of corrupt activities among current and former civil servants. However, despite high-profile statements, arrests and charges, many cases are increasingly falling apart in court, especially those with political overtones. This is the conclusion did political scientist Ruslan Bortnyk.
“Recently, there has been a tendency to increase the number of cancellations of accusations and acquittals at the State Criminal Court of those persons who have more than just any corruption charges, but the cases against them had political implications.” – noted Bortnyk.
He emphasized that, of course, in each case, it is necessary to understand separately the reasons that lead to the dismissal of charges and acquittals. However, the success or failure of the trial depends very much on the quality of the investigation, the quality of the collected evidence, the accusation formed by the investigating party.
We would like to remind you that recently VAKS canceled the NABU’s suspicion against former People’s Deputy Oleksandr Granovsky, which was announced to him back in October 2022. This is just one of the many cases where cases initiated by anti-corruption agencies fall apart in the courts. For example, cases against ex-Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan, who repeatedly stated the political bias of detectives, also ended in acquittals. Despite this, NABU did not apologize to Omelyan for the fact that he was subjected to illegal criminal prosecution and his business reputation was damaged.
A similar situation can probably be repeated in the case against former Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solskyi, who was accused of aiding ATO veterans in the privatization of land plots in the Sumy region eight years ago. According to NABU detectives, these lands were used by the National Agrarian Academy (NAAN) and could not be privatized. However, the Supreme Court ruled that the National Academy of Sciences had no rights to these lands, and even a historical analysis conducted by experts confirmed that these plots were never part of the National Academy of Sciences’ land bank.
The documents of some criminal proceedings indicate that the National Academy of Sciences could use the land it seized, considering it its own. These materials contain evidence that NAAS employees secretly leased land to farmers for growing crops, which is a violation of the law.
So, the main question in Solskyi’s case is whether NABU detectives will be able to prove their version that the land was really used by NAAS. If they fail, which is very likely, the ex-minister will be acquitted.
Statements about the non-objectivity and political engagement of NABU detectives are increasingly being heard by the bureau’s management itself. Recently, it became known that NABU started an investigation against the first deputy director of the bureau Gizo Uglava. Uglava, having become the object of the investigation, admitted the existence of serious problems in the work of the anti-corruption body, pointing out that the bureau is more focused on achieving external goals than on establishing the truth in the investigated cases.
