Prosecutor General's Office denies NABU chief was notified of suspicion

Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office has stated that claims spread by former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko about a formal notice of suspicion being served on National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) chief Semen Kryvonos do not correspond to reality.

The office said that within this criminal case, no person, including the head of the anti-corruption body, had been notified of suspicion in the manner prescribed by Ukraine's Criminal Procedure Code, as there were no legal grounds for doing so. It added that the corresponding entries about the suspicion notice in the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations had been cancelled.

Kravchenko maintains his version

Almost simultaneously with the office's statement, Kravchenko posted on social media that the suspicion decision had been properly delivered, which he said was confirmed by postal receipts, and that any attempt to cancel it or remove the record from the register would amount to political and unlawful interference. He further claimed that NABU detective Oleksandr Abakumov had approached the leadership of the State Bureau of Investigation and the Prosecutor General's Office demanding that the suspicion notice against Kryvonos be cancelled at any cost. Kravchenko later published a screenshot purportedly showing tracking of the suspicion notice en route to its recipient.

Background

On Monday, Kravchenko released a video based on 2008 case materials alleging that NABU director Kryvonos arranged a sham adoption of a child to avoid court liability for vote-buying. On September 7, amid a NABU and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office investigation into alleged systematic bribes taken by the Prosecutor General's Office from fraudulent call centers, Kravchenko submitted his resignation as Prosecutor General. On the morning of September 14, he announced he had signed a notice of suspicion against Kryvonos for document forgery aimed at obtaining an especially large unlawful benefit, and for the sham adoption. Overnight into September 14, Kravchenko himself left the country in an official vehicle. Kryvonos dismissed the allegations as nonsense and declined to comment on them.