“NABU and SAPO must work on themselves and the investigation data” – member of the Verkhovna Rada PIC on Mindich’s escape
10 December 16:27
The NABU’s operational units had to take into account all the risks associated with a person’s movement and the possibility of evading justice. Therefore, they must now conduct independent internal work, as this is a direct indicator of their performance. This was stated by MP, member of the PIC Oleksandr Bakumov, commenting on today’s meeting of the provisional investigatory commission on the Midas case [to Komersant].
The MP also noted that if Mindčić crossed the border legally and provided all the documents for this, then there are no violations on the part of the border guards, so first we need to find out all the actual circumstances of this situation.
“The operational units had to take into account all the risks associated with the person’s movement, the possibility of evading justice, etc. Therefore, it is certain that there should be independent work, perhaps by the NABU itself and the specialized anti-corruption prosecutor’s office, including if there was no assistance. And if the state inspector of the State Border Guard Service actually authorized the crossing of the border, taking into account all the rules and regulations, then what can we say about the escape? If the border was crossed in a proper manner, where is the offense? Well, there is none,” Bakumov noted.
At the same time, the MP emphasized that all these circumstances should be established by the pre-trial investigation authorities.
“If the state border was crossed in violation of the relevant procedure, or the basis for crossing the border, for example, I can only assume, were documents or something that was falsely forged (…) then this will also be an offense. That is, this needs to be established by the pre-trial investigation authorities. It is very difficult to give an assessment here, and as an MP, I can only give a political assessment now.
I hope that at the next meeting we will be able to understand what was the legal basis, whether there was assistance or not,” summarized the member of the Temporary Investigation Commission.
Positions of the parties
Earlier, the State Border Guard Service stated that Mindich’s border crossing was “legal and was formalized at one of the checkpoints in accordance with the current legislation.” The reason for his departure, in particular, was his status as a father of many children. And there were no prerequisites for Mindich’s detention “due to the lack of indexes” in the database.
“No restrictions were imposed on him to ban him from leaving Ukraine. Also, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine did not receive any instructions from any law enforcement agency that should be used by border guard inspectors in case of detection of this citizen at the state border, in particular, to ban him from leaving Ukraine, search or inform about the fact of crossing the state border,” the agency noted.
In his turn, NABU Director Semen Kryvonos noted that the Bureau did not inform the border guards about the need to stop Mindich if he appeared at the border because it feared leaks.
According to former SAPO prosecutor Stanislav Bronevytskyi, law enforcement agencies have long-established methods to prevent the escape of defendants in criminal proceedings. Therefore, such statements by Kryvonos are “a demonstration that either they do not know how to work out this category of proceedings, or they know very well, but deliberately build a different version of reality. And the second option looks much closer to the truth.”
