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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
He claimed the NABU director’s involvement in a land scheme from 12 years ago.
Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko released a new series of recordings that, according to his account, indicate NABU Director Semen Kryvonos’s involvement in a corruption scheme concerning a land parcel in 2014. He alleges that the then-head of the registration service of the Obukhiv city-district justice administration, Kryvonos, together with other people, demanded 72 thousand dollars from the applicant to obtain the land, and later participated in organizing its sale and understating its value in documents.
Kravchenko says the current NABU director was involved in events that could call into question the legitimacy of his appointment.
In the video Kravchenko named the persons featured in the recordings:
"Yanus" — Semen Kryvonos, who in 2014 headed the registration service of the Obukhiv city-district justice administration;
"Shvonder" — head of the Starobezradychivka village council Petro Horbachenko;
"Bormental" — the applicant Vladyslav Ruzmatov.
According to information cited by the prosecutor general, in March–November 2014 Horbachenko, together with Kryvonos, Vitalii Bulashenko, Vitalii Overchenko, and Dmytro Shnaider, allegedly demanded 72 thousand dollars from Ruzmatov for allocating a land plot of 0,25 ha in the village of Tarasivka, Obukhiv district.
In March 2014 Ruzmatov contacted the village council head to obtain the land free of charge. According to the investigation’s version, Horbachenko told him this could only be done for a bribe of 120 thousand dollars.
The conversations published by Kravchenko concern, among other things, the distribution of money among the scheme’s participants. In the recordings the interlocutors allegedly discuss amounts, expenses, and how much each of them could receive.
In April 2014 Ruzmatov contacted law enforcement and began acting under their control. According to Kravchenko, this was intended to help expose the village council head and other participants in the scheme.
Kryvonos allegedly had to find a nominal owner on whom the land could be registered free of charge. The plan was later to resell this parcel to Ruzmatov.
Horbachenko was to ensure a village council session was convened and a decision made to transfer the land to the nominal person. Bulashenko allegedly acted as an intermediary between the scheme’s participants and Ruzmatov.
On 20 May 2014 Bulashenko informed Ruzmatov that the land would be registered to Vitalii Overchenko. Ruzmatov was to receive it later through a purchase-and-sale agreement between them.
Subsequently the village council adopted a decision to transfer the parcel to Overchenko. On 30 September the registration service, then headed by Kryvonos, registered the ownership right to the land in his name.
After that Overchenko issued a power of attorney to Dmytro Shnaider. He was to arrange the subsequent sale of the parcel to Ruzmatov.
On 28 October Kryvonos, according to Kravchenko, instructed Shnaider to find an appraiser who could determine the land’s value below its real market price. In the released recording the interlocutors discuss an appraisal of approximately 149 thousand hryvnias.
On 30 October appraiser Serhii Ryabukin drew up a report that determined the parcel’s value at 149 896 hryvnias 25 kopecks. However, its market value was allegedly 345 thousand hryvnias.
Selling the land to Ruzmatov on 31 October 2014 failed. Shnaider was at the notary’s office where the paperwork and transfer of funds had already begun, but after receiving a message on his phone he refused to complete the transaction. Initially he postponed it to 3 November, and later abandoned it altogether.
Kravchenko’s released video says the operation’s failure is linked to Kryvonos’s meeting with deputy prosecutor of Obukhiv district Oleksii Pavlushko that took place the same day. After that Kryvonos allegedly stopped phone conversations and ceased communicating with the other scheme participants.
Kravchenko stated that Kryvonos is suspected of requesting a particularly large bribe in exchange for using his position for the benefit of himself and his associates. Kravchenko insists that a whole group of people acted according to a clear prior agreement.
Kravchenko also announced Kryvonos’s involvement in organizing the preparation and issuance of a knowingly forged appraisal report for the land parcel.
Kravchenko claims these circumstances were known to the selection commission that chose the NABU director. Despite this, Kryvonos became one of the three candidates the commission recommended for appointment.
"As a result, we have a situation in which a person reasonably suspected of corrupt acts ended up heading the agency whose primary purpose is to counter such acts," the video published by Kravchenko concludes.
Recall that on the morning of 14 September Kravchenko signed a suspicion notice for Kryvonos. According to him, Kryvonos forged documents to obtain a bribe and "artificially" adopted a child to have grounds to avoid accountability in court. Kravchenko also said that operation "Carthage," involving officials of the Office of the Prosecutor General, was organized so detectives could seize materials of criminal cases against the leaders and employees of anti-corruption bodies.
Last night the prosecutor general left Ukraine on what he said was a business trip abroad. The Center for Civil Liberties believes the official could not have done so without the president’s permission. Meanwhile President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly reacted categorically to the Prosecutor General’s actions: he said Kravchenko has only one path — dismissal. As a result, the Verkhovna Rada will vote on this today. NABU also responded to the suspicion against Kryvonos, noting that the pressure on anti-corruption agencies that began last year continues.
In the article "A Test for Zelensky. Will He Change the Rules for Appointing the Prosecutor General After Kravchenko’s Resignation?" the head of the legal department at the Anti-Corruption Center, Olena Shcherban, explained why the next appointment of the head of the Office of the Prosecutor General will be a test for the president.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item ""Янус", "Швондер" і $72 000 хабаря: генпрокурор Кравченко опублікував плівки на директора НАБУ Кривоноса". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ZN.ua.
