Ukraine wants to arrest Melnichenko who is in the US: what is the ex-major accused of

The Pechersk court of Kiev, at the request of the General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine, arrested the real estate and bank accounts of the ex-major of the State Security Directorate of Ukraine Nikolay Melnichenko, and also gave permission for his detention.

Photo: Facebook / Mikola Melnichenko

Melnichenko is suspected of committing high treason in the form of espionage, disclosing information constituting state secrets, exceeding official authority, as well as laundering of proceeds from crime, writes Tsenzor.NET.

Back in November 2016, the Pechersk court gave permission to detain the major, but this decree has expired. On May 16, the court again granted permission to detain Melnichenko in order to bring him to court to participate in the consideration of the petition to apply a preventive measure in the form of detention. The validity period of the resolution is determined during the pre-trial investigation - until November 16, 2018.

Melnichenko is currently in the United States, so 22 February 2017 Ukraine sent a request for international legal assistance to the International Affairs Division of the Criminal Law Department of the United States Department of Justice to locate the major and conduct investigative and procedural actions with him. According to the SBU Counterintelligence Department, Melnichenko actually lives in the city of Metyuchen, New Jersey.

The case against the ex-major was opened 19 August 2015. According to the investigation, Melnichenko as a senior security officer of the operational-technical inspection department of the operational-technical department of the UGO, in the period from February to September 2000, being an official responsible for conducting operational-technical inspections in a special security room - the office of the President of Ukraine, acting deliberately to the detriment of national security of Ukraine in the sphere of foreign relations, for selfish reasons, deliberately collected for the purpose of transferring information constituting state secrets, which were contained in recordings of conversations between President Leonid Kuchma and senior officials and political figures of the state. After which, in 2002-2004, Melnichenko handed them over to representatives of foreign organizations for an appropriate monetary reward, which he later legalized by purchasing real estate, vehicles and other property in Ukraine, as well as the United States.

One witness confirmed that Melnichenko received about two million dollars from the United States. These funds, the major allegedly kept in the safe of his office in Kiev, which was constantly visited by his proxies, among whom was the witness himself.

According to the witness, in 2006-2013, an apartment was purchased, in accordance with a written agency agreement, for more than 800 thousand dollars. In January 2013, an apartment was purchased in the name of Melnichenko’s father and subsequently re-registered in the name of the director of Ukrainian Internet Technologies LLC, whose company was affiliated with Melnichenko.

Two land plots and a dwelling house in order to disguise the illegal origin of funds were issued to the godfather and authorized representative Melnichenko.

A pre-trial investigation established that from 2006 to the present, Melnichenko allegedly conducted operations using enterprises with signs of fictitiousness for money laundering. So, from accounts of American company Express Van lines INC in 2006-2013, funds were transferred to Melnichenko’s accounts as return financial assistance. Money was withdrawn in cash at the ATM network both in the United States and in Ukraine.

The court decided to seize funds in the accounts of Novikom Group LLC and Butler LLC, as well as the major’s personal accounts in Privatbank.

In addition, the court seized the cars “LEXUS IS 250”, sedan-B, white 2011, “LEXUS RX 350” station wagon-B, brown 2012, “TOYOTA CAMRY 2,4” sedan-B, black, manufactured in 2009, registered to Melnichenko’s wife.

Melnichenko himself writes off this criminal case for political persecution, claiming that he has a personal conflict with the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, reports TSN.

“Unfortunately, in Ukraine there was and is an organized criminal group in power that is engaged in plundering the country. And it is not beneficial for this criminal group that my records, my evidence, which I collected at the risk of my life, were used in court. Today the fuss is due to the fact that I have a personal conflict with Poroshenko,” Melnichenko said.

According to him, the charges of illegal enrichment have no basis, the cars mentioned in the criminal proceedings belong to his wife, not the ex-major himself, and the real estate belongs to other relatives, and he has nothing to do with her purchase.

“The cars do not relate to me in any way, the property listed also does not apply to me in any way. Bank accounts also do not relate to me in any way today. I can buy and rewrite anything. But in this case, it’s nonsense. There is only one house that I inherited from my father, which was divided between me and my brother. I don’t have any houses anymore,” Melnichenko noted.

He added that it was not for the first time that a case against the same films was opened against him, but later the production was always closed.

The ex-major is not going to Ukraine yet. He says he will come “when he deems it necessary.” He is confident that the United States will not extradite him to Ukraine, since in this country he has official status as a political refugee.

Melnichenko admits that in the USA he has a cargo transportation company, however, he said, the business was started with money received from Ukrainian businessman Mikhail Brodsky, and not with laundered funds, writes Tsenzor.NET.

“I'm not a poor person in the USA. Absolutely. I employ almost 100 people from Ukraine. The person who came to me in the first year already becomes a millionaire by the fifth year of working in my company. My driver earns 100-150 thousand dollars a year,” said the ex-major.

He considers the charges of illegal enrichment an attempt to discredit him.

He explained how he managed, having a not-so-high salary in Ukraine, to move to the USA and immediately start his own business there.

“Look. I have friends in Ukraine who gave me a fairly large loan. This is hundreds, hundreds of thousands of dollars. One of them is Mikhail Yurievich Brodsky. Who simply gave me part of the money, and gave me part on credit so that I could develop and have some funds. This is official money that was transferred to me, including a loan,” Melnichenko said.

At the same time, he added that Brodsky was not his business partner.

“Mikhail Brodsky then, at that time, gave me a loan for a fairly good amount and also gave me a loan. I successfully used this money for business. Thank God, I have the opportunity to return this money. In America, if a person has, for example, 1000 dollars, then I will help him earn at least 100 thousand in a year,” said the ex-major.

Recall that the cassette scandal over the films Melnichenko had recorded in Kuchma’s office broke out in the autumn of 2000. The records testify to the involvement of Kuchma and a number of other individuals and politicians in the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze.

Melnichenko’s records appeared in the criminal case on the Gongadze murder, opened against Kuchma on March 21 of the year 2011. But in December 2011, a Ukrainian court ordered the prosecutor to stop the charges against Kuchma on the grounds that the evidence of his involvement in the murder of Gongadze was insufficient. The court rejected Melnichenko’s records as evidence.

On September 16, 2000, journalist Georgy Gongadze disappeared. That same year, in November, a headless body was discovered in a forest in the Kyiv region, which, according to experts, could belong to Gongadze. The police and the prosecutor's office worked out several versions - from trade and criminal to political. It was the latter that State Security Major Nikolai Melnichenko pointed out when he released voice recordings from Leonid Kuchma’s office, in which a voice similar to the voice of the then president spoke with the special services about “eliminating” the inconvenient journalist.

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