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Ex-Ukraine Top Prosecutor Lutsenko Probed For Abuse Of Power

By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service October 16, 2019

Ukraine's former Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko is being investigated on suspicion of abuse of power, local online news website Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing a response to an inquiry it received from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).

Pravda published the news on October 16, saying that the criminal investigation was opened in mid-August when he was still prosecutor-general and after a Kyiv court ruling earlier that month compelled the investigative bureau to launch a probe.

Lutsenko, 54, was the country's top prosecutor from May 2016 until August 29.

During his tenure he oversaw an investigation into an energy firm on whose board former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, had sat.

Lutsenko during this time also made unsubstantiated claims that tarnished then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch's work record.

Lutsenko closed the investigation into gas company Burisma and its owner, Mykola Zlochevskiy, in 2017 yet this year he met with President Donald Trump's confidante, Rudy Giuliani, to discuss Burisma.

The Lutsenko-Giuliani meetings were referenced in a government whistle-blower's complaint that was unsealed in August in which Trump is alleged have prodded Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens.
https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/20190812_-_whistleblower_complaint_unclass.pdf

That complaint, along with a rough transcript of a July 25 Trump-Zelenskiy phone call, prompted the House of Representatives to open an impeachment inquiry into the president.

In April-May, Lutsenko backtracked on his claims toward Yovanovitch and said he found no evidence of malfeasance on behalf of Hunter and Joe Biden, the latter of whom played a part in getting Lutsenko's predecessor ousted for foot dragging on corruption cases.

"Hunter Biden cannot be responsible for violations of the management of Burisma that took place two years before his arrival," Lutsenko told The Washington Post.

Lutsenko initially in March told a conservative columnist at The Hill newspaper that at their first meeting in 2017, Yovanovitch had given him a "do-not-prosecute list" that he acknowledged a month later was not accurate.

Speaking of their meeting to local online publication The Babel, Lutsenko said "the meeting ended…I'm afraid the emotions were not very good."

Yovanovitch on October 11 told a Congressional panel conducting the impeachment probe that Trump sought her removal as ambassador because of "unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives."

With reporting by Bloomberg, The Washington Post, NBC, The Babel, and UNIAN

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/30220338.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.