A cross to be placed on Human Rights in Ukraine?
When Yanukovych was elected president, Ukraine's the Cabinet of Ministers, prosecutor general's office, tax collection service, and the judiciary were almost immediately packed with his associates from the Donetsk region in a grossly disproportionate manner.
Since then the process has continued at lower levels too and a large number of top jobs in Ukraine's oblast' administrations, police, prosecutors, tax inspectors offices etc, across the country have fell into the hands of president's trustees from Donbas. Compaints about placement of 'overseers' is legion.
The 'Expres' website earlier this week
published an article with comprehensive list of examples of this process .
One observer says: Today's authorities do not take into account the professionalism of candidates, but rather whether or not they are natives of the Donetsk region they can personally trust. There is no place for 'foreigners'. The main criterion is personal loyalty..this is the road to nowhere..
Today
Sonya Koshkina in 'LB.com' provides another example of how the 'power vertikal' is becoming ever-more concentrated in the hands of a small band of 'Donetskiites'.
Next week Ukraine's Human Rights Ombudsman is to be re-appointed but it seems unlikely that the incumbent, Nina Karpachova, will be permitted to continue in her position. When she visited Yulia Tymoshenko in Kyiv's Lukyanov investigative isolation unit late last year she demanded doctors be allowed to treat the former PM. Karpachova called the situation
"unacceptable" and contrary to European norms and conventions..
Last May
she declared there was no reason for former interior minister Yuriy Lutsenko to be detained in prison and added that she would raise this issue with Ukraine’s prosecutor-general.
Favourite to replace her is the highly disreputable Hennadiy Vasiliev. He was head of the Donetsk prosecutor's office in the lawless early '90's when dozen's of businessmen were killed in the region as local state assets, factories and property were 'redistributed'. Needless to say, almost none of the cases were ever solved or perpetrators brought to justice.
He has been a PoR parliamentary deputy for several convocations, a deputy parliamentary speaker, former Prosecutor General etc. etc. as well as being a big-shot businessman.
Despite always being employed in public service, "Focus" magazine in early 2008 reckoned he was worth about $575 million, while "Korrespondent", in the same year, claimed the figure was $ 1.67billion, i.e.
16th place on the list of Ukraine's richest men.
In 2003-2004 as Prosecutor-General Vasiliev did his utmost to 'bury' the Gongadze case, and he was also linked to several dubious large land deals in and around Kyiv. After the Orange Revolution his laid low, but was re-elected to parliament in 2007. He has very rarely bothered to turn up or show his face there since then.
When Yanukovych became president, he appointed Vasiliev deputy head of the president's administration whilst he simultaneously holding onto his seat in the Verkhovna Rada - a situation not permitted by Ukraine's constitution. Since 2007 Vasiliev has never spoke from the parliamentary podium nor asked one parliamentary question.
In 2011, his name resurfaced in the media when he was linked to raiders' attacks on "Donetskstal." Because of these, trading in shares of the company on the Stock Exchange were suspended for several months, resulting not only in serious losses to the owners, but also serious upheavals in the market as a whole. Many observers considered Vasiliev behind these attempts to squeeze "Donetskstal".
Sonya Koshkina concludes: "He has been nominated of course, so that a cross can finally placed on Human Rights in Ukraine. Vasiliev and duties of ombudsman are concepts as incompatible as Viktor Yanukovych and reforms, or Viktor Yushchenko and decency."
She is correct. It is grotesque that such a person could ever be considered for the post of Human Rights ombudsman, particularly when Ukaine's legal system and judiciary are in such a shambolic state. Vasiliev has as much interest in Human Rights as King Herod had in child welfare..
Labels: Vasiliev
Iron Yulia
Several days ago the Russian NTV television channel, allegedly controlled by the Kremlin, premiered a biographic documentary film entitled "Iron Yulia".
Perhaps unexpectedly, it portrayed its subject, Yulia Tymoshenko, in a favourable light. There was little that could be negatively perceived by a Russian, or by a wider audience. Few details of her shady UESU gas trading activities, or even her crucial role in the Orange Revolution where detailed.
One Ukrainian political analyst says the Kremlin is indicating Russia has not forgotten about Yulia Tymoshenko and consider her an alternative to Viktor Yanukovych, particulary as those who imprisoned her now believe she has ceased to be an alternative. It is no accident the film appeared during a period of cooling relations between the president's administration and the Kremlin, when there is little common ground on the issue of gas and Ukraine's gas transportation system.
[
Source]
The film could even be a turning point in Tymoshenko's fortunes, though Yanukovych is doing his utmost to keep his arch-enemy under his boot.
But as with the other
'Iron Lady' - the fascination endures... Like it or not, we live in an era of political celebrity..and her incarceration merely adds to the myth..
Lutsenko court parody continues
If students of law want to know what a politically motivated show trial looks like they need not look into history books. All they have to do is observe what is going on in Kyiv's Pechersky District Court where former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko is being tried..
Yesterday [Tuesday] the presiding judge made no insistence that witnesses attend the court in person to provide testimony that could be be subjected to scrutiny. Instead, he merely "
read out more than 20 out of nearly 40 protocols of the interrogation of witnesses who gave evidence during pre-trial investigation at the Prosecutor General's Office and those who said that they could not attend court sessions for various reasons and circumstances."
Many, perhaps most of the 80 or more witnesses that have already given evidence in the courtroom either revoked testimonies they provided to prosecutors, or complained they were coerced into giving misleading evidence.
The entire case has become a parody of legal procedure. The judge is now deliberately bulldozing the trial in order to reach a verdict and sentencing before Lutsenko's case is heard in the European Court of Human Rights in a few weeks time.
[Read more
here]
And also from 'ForeignNotes'
here and
here about how the judge is being blackmailed to give the 'correct' verdict.
p.s. Video from TVi's 'Znak Oklyku' on the Ukrainian Prosecutors' banal and blatant misuse of its powers to coerce witnesses, grooming of witnesses, and invention of false evidence to enable Lutsenko's closest circle to be hounded
here
Why would anyone walk away from $80 million?
Early summer last year a huge scandal emerged: the Ukrainian state company 'ChornomorNaftogaz' purchased a deep sea drilling rig for $ 400 million after what supposedly was a competitive tender process. In the event, only two intermediary companies - the New Zealand Falcona Systems Ltd, and the Cardiff UK-based Highway Investment Processing LLP submitted tenders.
According to their published accounts the source suppliers of the rig, the Norwegian SDRL-Seadrill, received almost $250 million for the rig, so the winners of the tendering process, Highway Investment Processing LLP, took a mind-numbing $ 150 million 'cut' on the deal.
[Highway Investment Processing LLP offices,
incidentally lie between 'Tony's Italian and North Indian Cuisine Cafe', 'Chillies Take-Away', and 'Tattoo-U' tattoo parlour, in Cardiff, Wales.]
More
here and
here'ChornomorNaftogaz'
paid 80% up-front. The rig is currently in a Turkish port having its legs welded on, and the balance is to be paid after installation on site.
However,
'Ukrainska Pravda's investigation of records of the official British comanies' registrar, "Companies House" reveal that 'Highway Investment Processing LLP' is being dissolved, and "will be struck off the register....Upon dissolution, all property and rights vested in, or held in trust for hte LLP..will belong to the crown [i.e. the British Sovereign and State]".
Big questions: Why is a nameplate company which will be 20% of $400 million, i.e. $80 million richer in several months, being wound up? An why should 'ChornomorNaftogaz' pay the balance to a company that will cease to exist in less than 3 months?
Yuriy Boyko was asked about this business on Friday's 'Velyka Polityka z Yevheniem Kyselyovym' by AFP journalist Anya Tsukanova. He rather shiftily responded that transportation of the rig to site cost $15 million... for the other bits and bobs just ask Halliburton [Oilfield Services] who are responsible for its commissioning. And that's it. A Ukrainian proverb came to LEvko's mind: A thief's hat is always on fire....
The creepy Kyselyov, instead of following up the question, sensing Boyko's discomfort, muttered something about Halliburton being a huge US company once led by former secretary of defense Dick Cheney...and moved on.
Everyone knows the whole thing stinks to high heaven....sooner or later chickens will come home to roost..
p.s. If Halliburton are to be paid by 'Highway Investment Processing' for the commissioning work on the rig, they'll surely be getting worried about receiving payment, no? They will have conducted due diligence, so will be aware of the dirty little secrets...
p.p.s. 'Znak Oklyku' documentary on this topic
here
Lutsenko's writhes in pain as court judge ignores his appeals [Updated]
The grotesque spectacle of former interior minister Yuriy Lutsenko's trial continues...
Today [Thursday] the court sat for an unprecedented
14 hours - until 11.30 in the evening; and is set to continue Friday at 8.05 am. During the day Lutsenko complained he was feeling ill and doubled up in severe pain. Paramedics were summoned to attend to the accused on
four occasions [some reports said five] through the day and he was administered painkilling injections several times. He spent periods
lying down in the courtroom cage as proceedings continued..
So many witnesses have either given evidence in support of Lutsenko or have complained of pressure from prosecutors to 'rat' on him that in any normal court the presiding judge would have dismissed the trial many months ago, or declared a mistrial.
French human fights Ambassador Francois Zimeray, who attended the trial, declared Lutsenko's treatment to be
inhuman and illegal.The judge must really be having his balls squeezed hard by puppetmasters....
p.s. On Friday Lutsenko
did not appear in court. His defence council said that he had returned to his cell at 2.00 am and was awoken at 4.30 am in readiness for Friday's court session...
What is the point of such vindictive and despicable treatment of to the accused? LEvko suggests: to demonstrate to Ukrainians who is now in total command.. who has absolute power...and to spread fear by providing an example of what happens to those the authorities consider a threat to their omnipotence ..
