Vlasenko, Chair of the Temporary Investigation Commission, described the NABU and SAPO’s actions as a ‘media spectacle’
Serhiy Vlasenko made this statement in an interview with Olena Dumay on the ‘Dumay’ YouTube channel.
Serhiy Vlasenko stated that during a pre-trial investigation, law enforcement agencies should refrain from making public comments until the investigative proceedings have been completed.
As an example, he cited the approach taken by the British police, who, he said, following searches in high-profile cases, limit themselves to a brief statement and do not comment on the details of the investigation until it is complete.
Against this backdrop, he criticised the actions of Ukrainian anti-corruption bodies.
“Here, unfortunately, NABU and the SAPO have turned into PR agencies that spend more time at press conferences and briefings with journalists than they do investigating criminal cases,” said Vlasenko.
Why he is criticising the joint work of NABU and the SAPO
Separately, Vlasenko drew attention to the fact that NABU and the SAPO often act together in public.
He pointed out that the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office was established to exercise procedural oversight over the legality of investigations conducted by NABU detectives. In his view, this is precisely why the constant joint public appearances by these bodies raise questions.
“If you are supervising someone, you cannot be with them all the time, have lunch with them, have dinner with them, attend briefings together, hold press conferences together or attend training sessions together,” Vlasenko stated.
He added that, otherwise, doubts arise regarding the effectiveness of the SAPO’s procedural oversight of NABU cases.
The Yermak case
Vlasenko emphasised that he is not familiar with the case file concerning Andriy Yermak, but has been following the open court hearings.
He said that what he had heard during these hearings gave him the impression that the case involved a great deal of politics, PR and media hype, but very little in the way of legal substance.
“What I heard during the open court hearings leads me to conclude that in this case, as in many NABU cases, 98 per cent is politics, PR, perhaps some journalistic investigations, and 2–3 per cent is jurisprudence,” said Vlasenko.
At the same time, he clarified that there may be political or administrative grievances against Andriy Yermak, but such grievances do not in themselves constitute a criminal offence.
On public ‘leaks’
Vlasenko identified information leaks from law enforcement agencies as another problem.
According to him, the disclosure of pre-trial investigation materials has become a systemic phenomenon in Ukraine, but he sees no proper response to this.
Vlasenko stated that, in his view, the NABU and the SAP, instead of carrying out ‘serious professional investigative work’, are engaged in producing films and editing audio recordings.
“The second problem we face is leaks. Leaks of information from law enforcement agencies, the deliberate disclosure of this information. For some reason, not a single criminal case has been opened in this regard, and this is a huge problem,” he said.
Vlasenko believes that the public release of excerpts from investigation materials can shape public perception of a person’s guilt even before a court verdict has been handed down.
In his view, this substitutes the legal process with media hype and may influence public perception of the case.
He also claims that anti-corruption bodies use similar tactics in various high-profile cases: they publish selected fragments of recordings or materials, and then build their public communications around them.
Serhiy Vlasenko is a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament who has served several terms, a member of the ‘Batkivshchyna’ parliamentary group, an Honoured Lawyer of Ukraine and chair of the Verkhovna Rada’s Temporary Special Commission on the Investigation of Violations in the Sphere of Defence and Anti-Corruption.
During the interview, he spoke about the activities of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) and the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC), the Andriy Yermak case, the Yulia Tymoshenko case, leaks from law enforcement agencies and the role of the media in high-profile investigations.
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