Journalists compare what Mudra said on NABU tapes with what she told court. PHOTOS
Former Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Iryna Mudra is suspected of involvement in a criminal organisation and preparing a raider takeover of property worth hundreds of millions of hryvnias. What did she say on the NABU tapes, and how did she explain the recordings in court?
Censor.NET reports, citing Slidstvo.Info.
"These are ordinary private, so-called kitchen-table conversations," Iryna Mudra said in court when explaining her remarks on the NABU tapes.
On 25 August, the former Deputy Head of the Presidential Office was remanded in custody with bail set at UAH 20 million.
According to the investigation, Mudra was a member of a criminal organisation that planned to seize two companies and a building in central Kyiv worth hundreds of millions of hryvnias through the falsification of documents and court decisions.
Transparency International Ukraine and Slidstvo.Info compared what Mudra said on the NABU tapes with what she said in court.
The remarks on the tapes were translated from Russian.
Operation "Forrest Gump"
- It was previously reported that NABU and the SAPO are conducting a special operation to expose a criminal group involving MPs and senior officials from the Office of the President.
- According to media reports, as part of the announced special operation, NABU and the SAPO are carrying out searches at the home of Iryna Mudra, deputy head of the Office of the President.
- In addition, NABU detectives carried out searches at the home of Hladyshenko, the chairman of the supervisory board of ‘Sense Bank’.
- Vadym Stolar, a Member of Parliament from the ‘Opposition Platform – For Life’ party, which has been banned by the court, confirmed that NABU and the SAPO are conducting searches at his premises as part of the ‘Forrest Gump’ special operation.
- NABU later stated that the case involved 150 million hryvnias in cash which, according to the investigation, had been channelled into the legal system via a series of accounts held by front companies to pay bail for one of the defendants in the ‘Midas’ case.
- Subsequently, the former deputy head of the Presidential Office, Iryna Mudra, confirmed that her premises were searched on 19 August; she was informed of the charges against her and served with a request for a preventive measure, but was not detained. She is preparing for the court hearing.
- On 20 August, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) released new recordings of conversations involving those implicated in the ‘Forrest Gump’ case — the second part of the investigation entitled ‘Themis’. This concerns a scheme involving the hostile takeover of property and other assets through unauthorised interference with the Ministry of Justice’s information (automated) networks.
- On 20 August, a prosecutor from the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) named all the individuals implicated in NABU’s ‘Forrest Gump’ and ‘Themis’ operations.
- On 21 August, the High Anti-Corruption Court imposed a preventive measure on former MP Maksym Mykytas in the form of detention, subject to the payment of a 30 million hryvnia bail.
- On 25 August, Iryna Mudra was remanded in custody with the option of posting UAH 20 million in bail.
