Mudra followed Budanov’s instructions in Halushchenko bail case – Zhelezniak

MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak said that Deputy Head of the Office of the President Iryna Mudra may have been following instructions from Head of the Office of the President Kyrylo Budanov in the case involving the arrangement of bail for former minister Herman Halushchenko.

He made the statement during journalist Iryna Romaliiska’s broadcast on the Butusov Plus YouTube channel, Censor.NET reports.

Details

The MP noted that if the NABU audio recordings on YouTube are slowed down, the name "Kyrylo" can be clearly heard when Mudra mentions the head. Law enforcement officers attempted to bleep out the name when publishing the investigation materials.

According to Zhelezniak, the case materials indicate that a security detail from the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine was involved as the funds were transferred through cash-conversion centres.

"When this money was being laundered, it was carried in sacks to a cash-conversion centre under the protection of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine. Well, how many cash-conversion centres protected by Defence Intelligence do you know of in this country?" the MP said.

Operation "Forrest Gump"

It was previously reported that NABU and SAPO were conducting a special operation aimed at exposing a criminal group involving MPs and senior Presidential Office officials.
According to media reports, NABU and SAPO were conducting searches involving Deputy Head of the Office of the President Iryna Mudra as part of the announced operation.
NABU detectives also conducted searches involving Hladyshchenko, chair of the Sense Bank supervisory board.
Vadym Stolar, an MP from the court-banned Opposition Platform – For Life party, confirmed that NABU and SAPO were searching his property as part of Operation "Forrest Gump."
NABU later said the case involved UAH 150 million in cash, which, according to the investigation, was channelled through a series of shell-company accounts and brought into legal circulation to post bail for one of the defendants in the Midas case.
Former deputy head of the Presidential Office Iryna Mudra later confirmed that searches had been conducted at her home on August 19, that she had been served with a notice of suspicion and a motion seeking a preventive measure, but that she had not been detained. She is preparing for a court hearing.
On 20 August, NABU released new recordings of conversations involving figures in the Forest Gump case—the second part of the investigation, titled Themis. The case concerns a scheme to seize real estate and other assets through unauthorised interference with the Ministry of Justice’s information (automated) networks.
On 20 August, a prosecutor from the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) named all the individuals mentioned in connection with NABU’s Forest Gump and Themis operations.