Prosecutor in Kurchenko's case: 'hush up' cases against Poroshenko's entourage will no longer work

The controversial prosecutor Konstantin Kulik in an interview UNIAN He told why suspicions of helping Yanukovych’s family’s money laundering to Poroshenko’s inner circle were put forward now, on the eve of the elections, whether pressure was exerted on the prosecutor’s office in this matter and how the materials could “disappear” from the ERDR.

Konstantin Kulik. Photo: UNIAN

After the investigation into the Ukrainian businessman Sergey Kurchenko was completed, you signed a suspicion of laundering billions of the “family” of Yanukovich, including the former head of the AP Lozhkin, the former head of the National Bank Gontareva and the current deputy head of the AP Filatov. But these suspicions were canceled by the higher management, and you were summoned to the GPU. Tell me, what is happening in your department?

I came to work today (March 29, - UNIAN) at 9.00, went into the office, I saw that part of the materials of the “400th case” that was in the office was missing. Case No. 400 is the main base case to investigate the economic block of the illegal activities of Yanukovych’s criminal organization. I went to see Deputy Prosecutor General Evgeniy Enin and saw that he had the materials. I ask: “Did someone write down what was taken out of the office so that nothing was lost?” He says that everything seems to be here. But apparently something happened there at night. The materials were submitted, then the ERDR (unified register of pre-trial investigations - UNIAN) removed suspicions against these four individuals (Gontareva, Filatov, Lozhkin, Stetsenko - UNIAN).

Do you know how much of the material was removed?

I do not know what was missing. Here you need to take inventory and understand. There are more than three thousand volumes. What is missing? It is hard to say.

In this case, evidence is collected against a number of persons, then a person is suspected, after which a case against that person is singled out, a new number is assigned to him.

Here, Kurchenko is singled out from the “400 case”, he has his new number, there he is suspicious and the lawyers have been announced that they can come and get acquainted with him. This notification still goes to them by mail, in theory - tomorrow or the day after tomorrow (30-31 of March, - UNIAN) it should reach them.

As part of this case, suspicions were brought to Zlochevsky (former Minister of Environment of Ukraine, owner of the Burisma Holdings gas group Nikolay Zlochevsky, - UNIAN), Lozhkina, Gontareva, Stetsenko (Managing Director of the ICU group Konstantin Stetsenko, - UNIAN) and Filatova.

Information about the delivery of suspicions in an incomprehensible way for me was removed from the ERDR.

But at any moment these suspicions can be re-presented to Gontareva, Filatov, Lozhkin ..?

Yes, there is nothing deadly. The procedural document can be handed in different ways - you can call a person and give him a document, you can drive up, give him a hand, it is not prohibited. If you do not know where a person is, take his place of registration from the base and send him a suspicion by mail at the place of registration.

Are you a procedural manager in the “Kurchenko case”?

Yes, there is a senior group of prosecutors, but there are procedural leaders in the investigation. In fact, I do this business. All suspicions are written by me. I give an assessment of the evidence too. Signatures everywhere on the documents I put.

After all the events, do you remain the procedural leader or were you removed?

Nobody has notified me yet that I am suspended, I think that I remain with them. I can hardly be removed - it would be a scandal. This requires a foundation ...

Konstantin Kulik. Photo: UNIAN

I now took sick leave. I was told - go on vacation. I say that if I go on vacation now, it will look like everything is bad here. My head hurts a little bit, and we haven't slept for three days, let me take three days of sick leave. I drove to the hospital, they measured the pulse. I'll sleep off and go to work on Monday.

What is happening with the investigation of this case?

The investigation is now paused. I visited Enin and asked: "How do you see the further organization of work?" He says you need to think. Here, they think what it will look like.

Why was some of the documents withdrawn, why is this being done? Want to "hush up" these things?

Bank now puts pressure on the Prosecutor General's Office. The situation is unexpected, and hasty decisions are made. But our Bank or the Prosecutor General's Office is not the subject of investigation. It is clear that the situation is nonstandard, and so far everything has been suspended to sort it out.

Do you think that after the withdrawal of a part of the documents, can the evidence disappear, so that the opportunity to re-present suspects to the suspect disappears?

This is a provocative question.

…in theory?

No, it's all being restored. A crime is committed, its traces can be found again, if we understand how it was done. We will take a copy of the destroyed documents and show them to the court.

That is, "hush up" these things will not work?

In my understanding - no. What happens is nonsense based on emotion. Now, if they sat down and thought, they would have come up with something better. I would have come in their place, received this suspicion and went to defend myself in court. They still pretend that it was not.

Do they delay the inevitable? How can this emotional reaction be explained?

I do not think about what they can think. In my understanding, they have no options. They may delay time in this situation, but sooner or later these cases will go to court.

Can this whole situation damage the “case of Kurchenko” in court?

Political color of this business? Yes, protection can take advantage of this. But I think it will not affect much.

This will have more effect on the evidence that the group is trying to use the administrative resource in order to evade responsibility. The judge will see how they turned on the levers, how they tried to act. This will indicate the degree of danger of grouping. For the prosecution is a plus.

Were your home searched after signing a suspicion?

No, after that information came from various sources - from the State Security Committee, others, which I don’t want to mention, fairly reliable - that there was a team from the Presidential Administration to initiate proceedings, register the proceedings, and not so much conduct searches as to arrest.

This information was not true?

No, this task is still, just they do not understand how to do it. We need some kind of reason, you need to find fault with something. Now they are looking for such grounds. I think they stand and look, who comes home, who I meet, where I go. We connected to my Wi-Fi, connected to the phone, monitored ... Only for some reason there are a lot of them - this is overkill.

Are you not afraid for your life?

We all passed ATO, what are we afraid of? There, the armed people were detained; here we catch unarmed politicians or businessmen. It was necessary to pick up the case a year ago and somehow influence the situation. Yury Vitalyevich [Lutsenko] said: "No, the case will be investigated." So we investigated him ...

What is happening with the “Kurchenko case” now?

In fact, Now it is stopped, he was taken. Nothing is being investigated ... The investigation was completed only for Kurchenko, for them (Lozhkin, Gontareva, Filatov) it came only to the stage of suspicion. Then with them it is necessary to carry out investigative actions, as with suspects. And go to the end of the investigation. This is plus or minus two or two and a half months.

Konstantin Kulik. Photo: UNIAN

There, the evidence has been collected so that we need about two months to complete, to finish off the case - to carry out, basically, procedural actions with these persons. Perhaps not all of them will go to court in two months, but, let's say, according to Lozhkin, these are two months for sure. There is nothing to pull, everything is clear.

Speaker of the Prosecutor General Larisa Sargan in her Facebook claim that Lozhkin, Gontareva, Filatova, Stetsenko, for example, had insufficient evidence to raise suspicion ...

To assess the sufficiency of evidence, you need to at least see them. To see them, you need to read the suspicion. I doubt that they had such an opportunity. On the emotions this post was made in Facebook.

Did the Attorney General himself communicate with you about the suspicions?

Of course, I told him the situation.

How did he react to this?

Normally, I simply said that it might have been necessary to wait a couple of days so that it would not be used as interference in the elections. But the fact is that as long as all this was not in the media, it did not affect the elections in any way; it does not affect even now. How does it affect?

It beats Poroshenko’s image, because the investigation concerns the close circle of the president ...

This is not the closest environment.

How is his business partner, former head of the presidential administration Lozhkin ...

He fired him due to the fact that the situation got out when he was involved in a crime. When the asset of the UMH holding "Nashe Radio" was rewritten back to Lozhkin, the president removed him from his post.

Konstantin Kulik. Photo: UNIAN

In the same place, in the main, their circumstances (Poroshenko’s entourage, - UNIAN) are being investigated for the period before the Maidan. Investigated episodes when Poroshenko was Minister of Economy, People's Deputy of Ukraine. These events concern those times.

Tell me, did the representatives of the headquarters of presidential candidates come out to you? Maybe they offered some posts after their election victory?

You know, a lot of people are calling, I just don’t pick up the phone. Here, you knocked on the door, I opened them. And so, I do not take the phone, now a lot of information goes through the phone, but I do not answer.

But from the headquarters, from some headquarters, not yet, have not yet left. Journalists call, volunteers call, colleagues, friends call, politicians - not yet.

Sargan wrote that the legal assessment, according to her, of illegally signing suspicions, would be given by the RR ...

RRG abolished. Yury Vitalyevich [Lutsenko] contacted me and said that it was nonsense and there was no business in the State Security Committee.

Can you tell us in more detail what you talked about with Lutsenko?

Why do you need this? This is our personal conversation with him ...

I'm not a criminal. What is the deal in gdb? In order to assess my actions, the RRT is not necessary; there are superior procedural leaders.

But I know for sure that it costs the team to arrest me, just looking for a way. Given the team through the GDI, NABU and Matios, along with military counterintelligence, is engaged in this. I know that. I sit and wait, which of them will come first, and with what. Thank God, the Russian trace is not yet molded.

But NABU, in connection with the decision of the Constitutional Court, closed the proceedings against you regarding illegal enrichment ...

You speak a little wrong. April 2 will be sitting in court, during which they are required by law to file a motion to close the case under this article. This is one thing, but you can customize what you want. You can try to initiate a case on the declaration (about entering false data into the declaration, - UNIAN). They ran and wanted to raise suspicion for forgery in the declaration, although there is an estimate of the NACP ...

In general, something will come up. It would be something obvious would already be here. And so, while they were placed around the house. I see that they are worth it.

The fact is that by the specifics of the work, I know them all. "Outside" (external surveillance, - UNIAN) SBU stands, intelligence, SVR here climbs. The complex rolls around here and removes information, connects to networks. People come and complain that the phones have started to fail.

Let's talk about the essence of things. A total of 98 suspicions have been reported to individuals, including high-ranking officials, of whom 12 are top officials of ministries and departments. Who are these people?

These are those who occupied positions with Yanukovych — they are all former.

And someone is from acting officials, except Filatov?

Deputy Shverk (People’s Deputy from Blok Poroshenko Grigory Shverk, - UNIAN) is, he can be suspected of them only through a petition to the parliament and the decision of the Verkhovna Rada. In principle, we had to do it yesterday (March 6), but, due to these events, everything stopped.

Have you prepared a petition? Is there enough reason for it?

We planned to do this yesterday, but the case is paused. Materials taken out, and everything stopped.

Prosecutor General will sign a petition to withdraw immunity from Shverka?

He says that it is not yet in time. But it is not my fault that it is not at the right time. I could wait, but why should I wait? I have a deadline for the procedural investigation of Kurchen.

Why information about the defendants of this investigation appears only now?

I would consider these circumstances about two years ago. I would take decisions, and now I would sit clean and not worry. But with the collection of evidence the figurants interfered as much as possible. Therefore, delayed. However, finishing the investigation into the Kurchenko case, we are obliged to present suspicions to all his accomplices. Because they will say otherwise: “Why did you not make a decision regarding accomplices?”. Well, here, I accepted.

And what international investigative instructions were made in these cases?

There are a lot of them, mostly they are connected with the transfer of money outside Ukraine through bank accounts and the purchase of real estate, which proves the gain of people. According to Lozhkin, for example, money is arrested on the island of Jersey, the jurisdiction of Great Britain. He was summoned and interrogated in court; he gave false statements there: that he did not know that Kurchenko was a criminal and did not check from where he gave money for the UMH holding. That is, lied to the court.

Konstantin Kulik. Photo: UNIAN

We suspect Lozhkin that he committed to promoting the criminal organization of Yanukovich, because he agreed to “inflate” the value of the UMH holding so that the Kurchenko-Arbuzov group could get rid of money having an illegal origin. The amount was raised to 440 million US dollars, somewhere around 27 million Kurchenko left this deal for a scheme to smuggle gasoline. This is confirmed by so many proofs.

Then, when the Maidan occurred, Kurchenko and Arbuzov escaped to the Russian Federation, we launched an investigation, arrested these UMH assets. But then there was a tough opposition. Now it is already clear what was happening - then the administrative resource was turned on, and this led to the fact that they, with the help of the leadership of the GPU, managed to lift the arrest from the property of UMH, which was laid down in Ukreximbank.

The prosecutor did not go to the court session in this case, and then the command was given not to appeal the decision of this court. If the arrests had not been lifted, Ukreximbank would have taken UMH back in the 2015 year, and, moreover, would have taken another 50 million Arbuzov’s dollars in securities in the T-bills (similar we confiscated later). And 50 million dollars would take Klimenko from a person in treasury bills. This entire situation was shot down through the administrative resource. I suspect that Lozhkin, Filatov, Shverk are behind this. And also enough evidence to suspect it.

For this, Lozhkin and Shverk in 2015 got back “Nashe Radio” - this is one of the assets of the UMH holding. I think that there are enough grounds to send this case to court, let the judge deal with it. Let them go to court and give their explanations.

There is a moment against which I cannot go - Kurchenko continues to use the UMH holding and influence the information policy in Ukraine. I know for sure that Kurchenko is under the control of the FSB, we see these moments. In addition, he pays the holding money to all beneficiaries so far. We see it. As for me, this situation needs to be stopped.

What episode is Filatov?

Filatov made this deal for UMH holding from the law firm Vasil Kisil & Partners. That is, he compiled documents, he understood everything, saw everything that was happening.

And what is Gontareva suspected of?

She, when he was a founder of the investment company ICU, suspected of aiding a criminal organization in the theft of 2 billion hryvnia "Agrarian Fund".

In a nutshell, the events are related to the fact that in February 2014 of the year, when it was already clear that everyone was fleeing, Brokbusinessbank began to withdraw assets. Regulators and everyone wrote that Brokbusinessbank is becoming risky. And through him they decided to “wash” the money of the “Agrarian Fund”. ICU, like brokers, has cranked up this deal. Officials of the National Bank and the "Agrarian Fund" - all in court. There, of course, for the second year the case on them is blocked, they cannot start listening to him, but this situation has been sufficiently proven. Stetsenko personally signed the documents there, as a director ...

They obstructed as best they could. You do not think that they came and confessed. In the end, we squeezed them ... It's not my fault that this coincided with the election. They could go to meet the investigation and finish it still a year ago.

Do you think Poroshenko will remain on the second presidential term, the case against his entourage can go to court?

I believe that if these cases do not go to court, then all the persons involved in this investigation and somehow influenced him will live with this “hook” all the time.

This case must go to court and the court must decide whether we have collected enough evidence or not enough. Go to court and prove that you are not at fault. But they are afraid, because they understand that we have a sufficient evidence base that we will have to go to court, there will be journalists ... Then, a split can occur in the "gang", someone can begin to testify ... For them this is a dangerous situation.

In your opinion, what is the judicial perspective of these cases?

If we sign suspicions, then we understand that there is enough evidence to take the case to court. Judicial perspective - this is our confrontation with the defense in court. There are different moments. But we have enough reason to believe that there will be a sentence.

How serious crimes are incriminated to defendants Lozhkin, Gontareva, Filatov in terms of what the sentence can be?

These are not serious, these are especially serious crimes.

Based on the practice, according to these articles, the courts in Ukraine impose sentences in the form of anywhere from 5 to 9 years of imprisonment, as lucky. Much depends on the person involved, what the circumstances of the case. But the court can justify.

Our task is to send the case to court, not to hide it and not to cover it. We focus on Europe, not on the "scoop". Our task is to collect evidence and transfer cases to court as quickly as possible. We are already delayed with all this.

Can these cases go to a new Anti-Corruption Court?

Here I am not ready to say, because I do not quite understand what will go to the Anti-Corruption Court. Some defendants are suspected of legalizing and assisting a criminal organization, others are suspected of assisting a criminal organization and of complicity in embezzlement on a large scale. At first glance, this is a matter of jurisdiction for the Anti-Corruption Court, but there will be nuances the same as in NABU.

I do not think which court they will go to; we don’t care in which court to support the accusation.

Did you feel pressure during the investigation of the “Kurchenko case”?

Yes, constantly. For different reasons, different pressure. But all the pressure was neutralized by the leadership of the prosecutor's office. Enin and Lutsenko neutralized any pressure. What put pressure on us? We can not agree with us, you can not put pressure, because the leadership does not give. We had a full "green light", we all investigated. Why did we come up with these results? Just because we were allowed to investigate, and removed all those who could put pressure on us. We could not get through. Those who came to us with money, we ourselves "took" on this money.

For example?

Tamrazov suggested that we detained him on a bribe (Alexey Tamrazov, a businessman, owner of the INSIDER online publication and a well-known blogger, was detained on August 9 while trying to bribe thousands of dollars in bribes to the prosecutor Kulik, UNIAN).

Konstantin Kulik. Photo: UNIAN

Why, then, is it now about abolishing suspicions by the president’s circle?

Bank now puts pressure on the prosecutor's office, so now it's all slow down. While this confusion is taking place, the investigation is paused.

In your opinion, Lutsenko, who is Poroshenko’s godfather, will go against his entourage?

I see that he does it. I don’t know how in other departments, but we don’t have any bans at all - go and investigate. The only thing, he (Lutsenko, - UNIAN) came and asked: "Why did you not report to me that you already signed and sent suspicions?". I told him: “So as not to set you up, not to create such a situation, not to put you before a choice.”

Still, the suspicions were canceled. Does this mean that Lutsenko was able to influence?

I don’t know what happened. The information that suspicions were brought has disappeared from ERDR. It can be removed from there only in two ways: either as mistakenly exposed, or by canceling suspicions. On what grounds the decision was made, I do not know.

You say that you communicated with Lutsenko, but you were not interested in why suspicions disappeared from ERDR?

No, did not ask. What is there to me incomprehensible? Why ask stupid questions?

What is the algorithm of action next? Will you re-sign Gontareva, Lozhkin, Filatov suspicions on Monday?

The fact is that we, at the same time, on March 28, called them - Lozhkina, Gontareva, Filatov, Stetsenko - to us with official summonses. They will be required to come to us on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

Anyway, they will be handed these documents in a different way. They may say that they did not receive by mail. No problem. We will hand them the suspicions in the GPU premises ... I took a pause until Monday, now I will restore my health a little bit, and on Monday they should already appear, and we will hand them the same suspicions against receipt and show the evidence base. Because they have the right to know what the suspicions are based on.

All persons involved are now in Ukraine?

I do not know, to be honest. This is the category of persons who are flagged. If we start wondering where they are, they immediately become aware.

What does “flags” mean?

Information gathering about them is controlled by the special services, therefore, as soon as we begin to establish the bases, where they are, where they live, what they do, they immediately become aware.

They are all registered in Ukraine. We sent them at the place of registration and suspicions, and the agenda. This is not a procedural problem.

But they can simply not appear, ignore the agenda?

May not appear. But, in their place, on the contrary, I would have come with lawyers, and in the future I would defend myself in court.

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