Latest officials named suspect in crimes, including Burisma owner

A notice of suspicion issued against Mykola
Zlochevskiy, the owner of the Burisma Holdings natural gas extraction firm, has
been changed to the criminal statute of theft of state funds in large amounts,
Prosecutor General of Ukraine Ruslan Riaboshapka told a press briefing on Nov.
20. Zlochevskiy is currently under search, he said, though the pravda.com.ua
news site noted in its report that an official announcement of a search has yet
to be posted on the Interior Ministry’s website. The search request, which is
the government’s second involving Zlochevskiy, halts efforts to investigate 13
criminal cases opened against the former ecology minister in 2010-2012. “Since
we can’t investigate them, they will be placed under continuation,” Riaboshapka
said, adding that some involve financing terrorism or terrorists acts, a likely
reference to the pro-Russian forces in Donbas.

Zlochevskiy’s wealth was estimated at USD 686 mln in
October by the nv.ua news site, which conducts an annual survey of Ukraine’s wealthiest
citizens. Zlochevskiy controls the Burisma gas extraction company that has been
at the center of the U.S. political scandal that triggered impeachment
proceedings against U.S. President Donald Trump. Several of the criminal cases
against Zlochevskiy mention the name of Hunter Biden, the son of U.S.
presidential candidate Joe Biden who sat on Burisma’s board of directors,
Riaboshapka told the press briefing.

Roman Nasirov, the former head of the State Fiscal Service,
was named a suspect on Nov. 19 in a criminal case involving the illegal
postponement of tax payments by companies controlled by former MP and exile
Oleksandr Onyshchenko. Prosecutors with the Specialized Anti-Corruption
Prosecutor’s Office read an act of four pages during ten minutes at a hearing
in the newly launched High Anti-Corruption Court, which replaced a 774-page act
that had been read in the standard courts during a period of two years, as
reported by the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. The newly elected parliament
changed the Criminal Procedural Code in September. Nasirov and an associate
denied guilt in the alleged crime.

Denys Dzenzerskiy, an MP in the previous convocation,
was named a suspect on Nov. 19 in criminal case of failing to declare UAH 4.7
bln in financial obligations, the pravda.com.ua news site reported, citing a
source in the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. In 2015-2018,
Dzenzerskiy sought to conceal information about his financial condition, having
not declared his unfulfilled obligations to several banks.