Arakhamia says he has bribery evidence in his People’s Servant faction

David Arakhamia, the
head of The People’s Servant parliamentary faction, said during his Oct. 24 lie
detector test that he has evidence that several MPs of his faction took bribes
in exchange for votes, the pravda.com.ua news site said. At the same time,
Arakhamia wasn’t able to appear on television that evening with a witness of
the alleged bribery owing to what he said was a prohibition by law enforcement
officials. They said they don’t want their investigation to be undermined, and don’t want the MP’s life to be threatened,
Arakhamia said. The alleged bribery didn’t only involve the Yatsenko
intermediaries (costing at least UAH 24 mln), but schemes in the hundreds of
millions of dollars, he said.

The same evening, Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar
Kholodnytskiy told a television talk show that three witness are willing to
testify in the alleged bribery involving the Yatsenko intermediaries. Among
them is People’s Servant MP Olha Vasylevska-Smahliuk, who is among the 14 MPs
on the parliamentary finance, tax and customs committee who didn’t support a
bill aimed at eliminating
intermediaries set up by MP Anton Yatsenko to siphon funds allegedly from buyers to pay
for required appraisals on real estate. Kholodnytskiy said his office isn’t
ready to name any suspects in the criminal case opened.