The Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) has interviewed 562 witnesses as part of pretrial investigation into 13 criminal cases featuring the fifth Ukrainian president and current member of parliament Petro Poroshenko. Investigators ordered 35 forensic studies, including 27 in the criminal probe concerning the actions of sailors crossing the Strait of Kerch, the SBI press service said in a statement.
Shares in and material assets belonging to the Kuznia on Rybalsky (Kuznya na Rybalskomu, formerly known as Leninska Kuznia) plant were frozen, as were the money of Priamyi television channel owner Volodymyr Makeyenko on bank accounts, totally, 31 million euros.
Investigators also sent 20 requests for international penal assistance, including 14 in the criminal probe into Poroshenko illegally crossing the Ukrainian border on a forged passport.
The SBI has published a full list of criminal cases featuring Poroshenko on suspicions as follows:
– The voyage of Ukrainian naval ships across the Strait of Kerch, which resulted in an escalation of the conflict with Russia and the introduction of martial law in Ukraine with the a view to possible usurping power;
– Takeover of state power including forging of official documents when submitting the candidacy of Ukrainian prime minister in the absence of a coalition in the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada;
– The alleged loss of material carriers of classified information containing state secret (the situation room in the Presidential Administration building);
– An illegal transfer across the Ukrainian state border by means of using a forged passport (Maldives); an illegal detention of Mikheil Saakashvili and his illegal deportation to Poland;
– Organizing and exercising an illegal sending of Mykola Chaus across Ukrainian border to Moldova;
– The invalidation of the decision of the president of the Pervomaisk District State Administration in the Mykolaiv region with regard to adding a land parcel located in the territory of the Leninsk rural council to the state reserve land;
– Tax evasion and further legalization (laundering) of criminal proceeds from the sale of Kuznia na Rybalskomu;
– Tax evasion and further legalization (laundering) of criminal proceeds from the sale of LLC TELEVISION CHANNEL PRIAMYI;
– An unlawful acquisition of assets belonging to the Ukrainian Association of the Blind’s recreation compound Ivashka by Soyuz Invest LLC employees;
– Unlawful influence on the contest during the selection of candidates for members of the Supreme Council of Justice in March-May 2019, holding the contest within a short period of time and issuing possibly unlawful orders to change the contest procedure;
– Abuse of office and interferences with the work of judges in Ukrainian courts by way of untimely appointing them as such, which had serious implications such as inappropriate payment of their wages from the Ukrainian state budget;
– Meddling in the work of the judges of the Kyiv District Administrative Court on the part of the Ukrainian president, members of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council with regard to the decision on rescinding the nationalization of PrivatBank.
“All the information is published in accordance with Article 222 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine,” the SBI said.
