Anti-corruption judges allege Martynenko lawyers responsible for explosion

The board of judges of the High Anti-Corruption Court
of Ukraine published a statement on Oct. 7 alleging that lawyers representing
energy trader Mykola Martynenko are responsible for a bomb exploding in the
court’s parking lot a week earlier. The explosion occurred in the parking spot
of the judge overseeing a criminal case against Martynenko, who is alleged to
have inflicted about USD 17 mln in financial damages to state companies
Energoatom and the Eastern Mining Enrichment Complex. “This incident became the
last episode that convinced judges of the premeditated interference from
lawyers,” said the statement, which was addressed to the head of the Supreme
Justice Council and the Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.

Previous interference in the court’s work by
Martynenko’s lawyers consisted of “obviously baseless statements and
complaints,” repeated violations of the court’s rules of order, and criticism
of the judges in the mass media. One lawyer even initiated an attempt to file
criminal charges against the judges in the case, the statement said. The court
evaluates these actions, including the explosion, as “interference in the
activity of judges,” the statement said.

Recall, a Swiss federal criminal court ruled in June
that Martynenko was guilty of laundering EUR 2.8 mln through the Swiss
financial system as part of a criminal organization. Martynenko has appealed
the decision, which has yet to take effect.

Zenon Zawada: Though the
claims by the judges haven’t been proven, they are credible. And we are
witnessing the slow and gradual downfall of yet another Ukrainian political
player, who in this case has already been convicted of corruption.

Martynenko, who earned his millions from questionable
schemes in Ukraine’s energy sector, has been among the leading financiers of
Ukraine’s pro-Western political parties. He was a key sponsor of the Orange
revolution of 2004-2005, joining the inner circle of then-President Yushchenko.
He was also a key sponsor of the defunct People’s Front party, whose leader
Arseniy Yatsenyuk led the cabinet following the EuroMaidan revolts.

So his biography makes the claims of the IMF-sponsored
court all the more poignant and disturbing. The lawyers for a politician so
closely tied to Ukraine’s pro-Western public figures should at least uphold
basic Western values, such as the respect for the independent functioning of
courts.

The fact that this is happening at the
IMF-sponsored High Anti-Corruption Court is more evidence of the importance of
the independent functioning of these IMF-sponsored law enforcement institutions
in Ukraine (launched in the years following the EuroMaidan). Had the explosion
occurred at a Ukrainian court, it would not have drawn half the attention it’s
now gaining. And the fact that these lawyers are allegedly referring to such
drastic measures indicates that they actually fear these judges, whereas for
decades, it was the other way around in Ukraine.