Kliuyev being sought by Ukrainian authorities

MP Serhiy Kliuyev is being sought on Ukrainian territory by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and has also been placed under international search, reported on June 9 Viktor Shokin, the prosecutor general of Ukraine. Kliuyev’s lawyer claims that his client is on Ukrainian territory and is seeking medical treatment, Shokin said. Yet prosecutors can’t confirm his whereabouts, he said. 

The Ukrainian bureau of Interpol has yet to receive a request from the Prosecutor General Office’s of Ukraine to issue an international search alert for Kliuyev, reported the Ukrainian News agency, citing an anonymous source at Interpol. The State Border Service is monitoring for Kliuyev’s possible movements to leave Ukraine and will act to prevent that, service spokesman Oleh Slobodian said on June 9, reported pravda.com.ua. Kliuyev fled Ukraine on a charter flight from Kharkiv on the night of June 8, reported on June 9 Yuriy Syrotiuk, the head of the Ukrainian Studies Strategic Research Center. The border service succeeded in preventing Kliuyev’s attempted flight to Vienna on June 3, Slobodian said.

Zenon Zawada: A standard pattern is emerging: authorities open a criminal case against an allegedly corrupt politician, they threaten to file criminal charges (or they’re also filed), no arrest is made and he disappears abroad. If Kliuyev is confirmed to be abroad, full responsibility lies with the parliament, which could have ordered his arrest when stripping his immunity. Just as Kliuyev is reported to have disappeared, so has MP Serhiy Melnychuk, who was stripped of his immunity at the same time.

Nothing can be better evidence of the current government’s disinterest in introducing rule of law and eliminating corruption than the failure to arrest and prosecute either of the Kliuyev brothers, for whom there is adequate evidence of alleged criminal misdeeds. These alleged crimes not only involve numerous financial schemes, consisting the government hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years, but also the alleged role of Andriy Kliuyev in persecuting the EuroMaidan protest when serving as chair of the National Security and Defense Council. The dismissal of Yatsenyuk’s government is frequently being discussed in Kyiv. Unfortunately, the current parliament doesn’t offer many good replacements (given that the president adamantly opposes new parliamentary elections).