U.S., EU call for prosecution of perpetrators of Gontareva arson

The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine called for law enforcement
authorities to immediately and thoroughly investigate and prosecute those who
ordered and carried out the Sept. 17 arson attack on the suburban Kyiv home of
Valeria Gontareva, as well as the numerous threats against her. That demand was
repeated by the EU Delegation to Ukraine hours after arsonists destroyed the
home of Gontareva, who served as National Bank of Ukraine governor between 2014
and 2017 and conducted numerous highly contested bank nationalizations. “The
recent, obvious series of attacks on the former NBU governor and her property
are unacceptable, as the president of Ukraine announced this morning,” said its
statement published on Twitter. “We expect that law enforcement bodies to
conduct investigations immediately and prosecute those responsible.” 

Prosecutor General of Ukraine Ruslan Riaboshapka will
hold a meeting today of law enforcement heads to discuss the investigation of the
arson attack on Gontareva’s home, the office’s website reported on Sept. 17.
“Currently under the prosecutor general’s direction, the police is conducting
immediate investigations in order to determine the true conditions of the fire
and review all possible versions in the case,” the statement said. “A criminal
case has been opened for deliberate destruction of property. Its investigation
in under the control of the Prosecutor General’s leadership.”

The National Police is considering only one version of
events explaining the fire at Gontareva’s home, which is deliberate arson, said
on Sept. 17 a police spokesman, as reported by the hromadske.ua news site. “We
have seen on video cameras how an unknown person throws two suitcases over the
fence,” he said. “Then he threw an inflammable device. These suitcases caught
on fire, and then the fire spread to the gazebo, which was nearby. From there,
the entire building burned.”

The arson attack at Gontareva’s home is part of a
terror campaign aimed at intimidating reformers in Ukraine’s banking sector,
the National Bank board said in a statement published on Sept. 17. The board
declared in its statement “the unacceptability of targeted, systemic attacks on
the former central bank governor Valeria Gontareva and in her personhood –
against all reformers who worked and are working for Ukraine’s well-being. This
is no longer a series of incidents. This is terror. Its goal is to intimidate
reformers, both past and present, to paralyze our activity, and to force us to be
silent.” The attacks are a direct and open threat to democracy and its reforms,
a threat to each citizen and their constitutional rights and freedoms, and a
total ruination of the moral values of democratic society to the benefit of
terror, the statement said.