Two businessmen from the former Soviet Union, who are linked to efforts by U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer to investigate his political foes, have pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to hide illegal campaign contributions to politicians.
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Journalist group says it won't give internal documents for Poroshenko probe:
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
A Ukrainian investigative journalism outlet has publicly objected to a court ruling that gave the State Bureau of Investigations (DBR) wide-ranging access to the group's internal communications and documents that it says is "excessive" and runs the risk of revealing editorial sources.
Skhemy (Schemes), a joint project of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service and UA:Pershy television, issued a note of protest on October 23 saying the DBR had been granted inordinate powers that "unjustifiably interfere in the editorial department's work."
Based on the October 17 Kyiv Pechersk district court ruling, the DBR has permission to learn the work schedules and itineraries of the editorial staff, its camera operators and drivers, their salaries, and internal communications, including the process of making corrections and edits as well as how decisions are made on what to show on their investigative programs.
The ruling relates to a DBR criminal investigation of whether former President Petro Poroshenko used "deliberately forged documents" and illegally crossed international borders when he and an unspecified number of people vacationed in the Maldives on January 1-8, 2018, which was the subject of a Skhemy investigation.
The journalism group aired its investigation on January 18, 2018 and in the program it hypothesized that Poroshenko may have used forged documents when travelling.
At a February 28, 2018 news conference, Poroshenko said he crossed the border using his name, "with my own passport that was properly registered with the border guards."
After Skhemy's protest note was published, the DBR said all the information that it "requires from Radio Liberty will relate exclusively to the program Skhemy: Corruption In Details."
The information, the DBR said, will help with the criminal investigation "inasmuch as Poroshenko isn't providing evidence to establish all the circumstances within the framework of the investigation," which is why Skhemy's assistance is needed.
However, the journalist group countered that the DBR hadn't explained how access to staff schedules, salaries, and decision-making processes could help with the criminal investigation.
Separately, Skhemy chief editor Natalka Sedletska noted that the group had already cooperated with investigators by providing them with official inquiries that journalists submitted during their investigation to various government bodies and individuals.
The group further added that it will not provide the authorities with internal correspondence and any information related to program production processes.
According to the court ruling, the DBR can with a separate court order search the premises of Skhemy if the group doesn't voluntarily provide investigators with requested information.
The DBR's investigation into the former president was announced on August 6.
No grounds to return PrivatBank to ex-owners, president's office says:
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
Ukraine's largest lender, PrivatBank, should not be returned to its former owners in any scenario, according to a statement on the presidential website.
"There is no reason to return state-owned PrivatBank to its former shareholders" regardless of court rulings on the lender, said the October 23 statement released following a meeting between presidential office head Andriy Bohdan and ambassadors of the Group of Seven countries in Kyiv.
The fate of the financial institution, once owned by billionaires Ihor Kolomoyskiy and Hennadiy Boholyubov, has become a single-indicator test for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has promised to eradicate graft and release the grip that influential oligarchs have on Ukraine's economy and political decision making.
Ukraine's international lenders, foreign investors, and corruption watchdogs are also closely monitoring the bank's plight as Kolomoyskiy, a former business associate of the president, has vowed to regain ownership rights to it.
He lost control in 2016 when the central bank nationalized it for not passing stress tests or having enough capital, and two years later an independent audit concluded that PrivatBank had conducted "large-scale and coordinated fraud" for at least 10 years leading up to its takeover.
U.S.-based corporate investigative firm Kroll and attorneys at AlixPartners also found a hole of at least $5.5 billion on the bank's balance sheet.
Kolomoyskiy has denied wrongdoing and maintains he is the rightful owner of the bank.
Speaking to Ukrainian Praymiy TV on October 19, Valeria Hontareva, the former central bank chairwoman who took part in nationalizing PrivatBank, called Kolomoyskiy's efforts to receive monetary compensation for losing the bank "the theater of the absurd."
Speaking in London, Hontareva said the bank had about $6 billion worth of nonperforming loans that were made to Kolomoyskiy and related parties. "The bank was an empty pyramid [scheme]," she said.
Yet, as recently as October 22, a court in Kyiv gave the State Bureau of Investigations (DBR) access to documents related to cooperation between PrivatBank, the central bank, and the Finance Ministry with Kroll, as well as law firms Hogan Lovells, AlixPartners, and Asters.
The DBR will have access to information that could potentially blunt Ukraine's legal efforts to recover money that was allegedly funneled out of the bank in numerous foreign jurisdictions and at home, where Kolomoyskiy has initiated litigation in hundreds of cases related to the financial institution.
Hogan Levells has successfully represented the state-run bank in London, where on October 15 it won an appeal to freeze $3 billion in assets belonging to PrivatBank's previous owners and pursue claims on the money.
The London Court of Appeal also ordered the bank's former owners to pay PrivatBank $14 million by November 12 to cover the costs of last year's hearing and the legal work leading up to the October 15 decision by the Court of Appeal, Ukraine Business News reported.
The defendants were furthermore denied permission to appeal and were told to file their defense by the end of November.
Then on October 17, an economic court in Kyiv said it had suspended a trial on whether the nationalization of the bank was lawful until another case in an administrative court reaches a denouement.
Ukraine ranks 64th out 190 countries as a destination for ease of doing business, a yearly World Bank report published on October 23 said. Last year, it ranked 71st.
Kyiv was credited for streamlining the process of obtaining construction permits, making it easier to get electricity, register property, and access credit, and improving access to credit information, minority investors, and trading across borders. (w/Novoye Vremya, Ukraine Business News, Pryamiy TV, and Ukrayinska Pravda)
Sentencing of Donetsk journalist an "affront to human rights":
By RFE/RL
Amnesty International has joined other international rights watchdogs in condemning the decision by a court established by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine to sentence independent journalist Stanislav Aseyev to 15 years in a penal colony.
The London-based group on October 24 said the sentence was "the latest affront to human rights" by the separatists who took control of parts of the Donetsk region.
Amnesty International's statement comes two days after separatist news outlet DAN reported that the court had found Aseyev guilty of espionage, extremism, and public calls to violate the territory's integrity.
Oksana Pokalchuk, director of Amnesty International Ukraine, said Aseyev "must be released immediately, and the people's right to freedom of expression in Donetsk and throughout Ukraine must be upheld."
"Journalists collect and impart information, that's what they do for a living. For those who are bent on terrorizing and silencing free media, an independent journalist is a 'spy' by default," Pokalchuk said.
RFE/RL President Jamie Fly described the ruling against Aseyev "an attempt by Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk to silence his powerful, independent voice."
The OSCE representative on freedom of the media, Harlem Desir, denounced the sentencing as "completely illegal," while the European Federation of Journalists called it a "blatant violations of media freedom."
The verdict was also condemned by others, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, Ukraine's government, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio.
Aseyev, who wrote under the pen name Stanislav Vasin, has been held in detention by the separatists since his disappearance in Ukraine's Donetsk region on June 2, 2017.
The 30-year-old journalist was one of the few reporters in Donetsk who continued to work in the city after it came under the control of the separatists in 2014.
Russia-backed separatists are also holding parts of the neighboring Luhansk region.
"Media freedom in Ukraine, including in government-controlled territory, has been cause for growing concern in recent years, with instances of politically motivated criminal proceedings against independent journalists and killings of journalists that remain unsolved," Amnesty's Pokalchuk said.
Ukraine ranks 102nd out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' 2019 World Press Freedom Index.