Oleh Tatarov and Another “Scheme”: How the Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Influenced the Selection of the Head of the SBI

Oleh Tatarov and Another “Scheme”: How the Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Influenced the Selection of the Head of the SBI

Oleh Tatarov again became the subject of an investigation by the journalists of Schemes, which alleges interference in the competition for the position of head of the State Bureau of Investigation and blatant lobbying by the deputy head of the Presidential Office.

This became known after the investigation was published by the journalists of the Schemes program of Radio Liberty.

Journalists were able to establish that the competition did not adhere to the principles of competitiveness and openness.

“Although the law on the SBI says the commission’s meetings are open to the media, the chair of the commission left that question to the discretion of commission members. The result: the five votes required to make a decision were not found. Only one member voted against — Oksana Kuchynska, a professor from Shevchenko University in Kyiv. Why is the competition for the head of the State Bureau of Investigation — an agency that handles cases against high-ranking officials — being held in the Presidential Office? On the one hand, the law on the SBI states that the organization of the competition is entrusted to Bankova [the Presidential Office], but on the other hand there is the Constitution, which does not mention such powers of the president and his Office,” the journalists note.

The investigation also found that the competition was conducted in violation of the current legislation. In particular, the investigation states that the winner “was known in advance.”

The winner was Oleksiy Sukhachov, who previously failed re-certification at the Prosecutor General’s Office and failed several other competitions.

According to the investigators, having secured Oleh Tatarov’s support and “performing the job of burying all high-profile cases that the SBI was supposed to investigate,” Sukhachov “received approval for the position from Tatarov as a token of gratitude.”

Journalists say Sukhachov was helped in his appointment by “friends from the publication ‘Criminal Bulletin of Ukraine’”: Oleh Tatarov,

Oksana Kuchynska, Serhiy Merezhko, and Oleksandr Kozlenko. “Oksana Kuchynska is deputy editor of the Bulletin of Criminal Proceedings at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and the winner Oleksiy Sukhachov serves as a member of its editorial board. And there is also Oleh Tatarov — deputy head of the Presidential Office,” the journalists noted, and they presented additional evidence of an obvious conflict of interest among commission members during the “competition”-appointment of Sukhachov.

Sukhachov, however, said he had not met with Kuchynska on the editorial board, but as another member of that board explains, it was Oksana Kuchynska who was “the main coordinator among the editorial board members.”

Thus, after Oleksiy Sukhachov’s selection, the SBI effectively fell under Oleh Tatarov’s control, and there are grounds to believe that Tatarov is attempting to implement a similar scheme in the selection of the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.