Internal investigation into Kravchenko completed. He committed disciplinary offence – Kovalskyi
The Prosecutor General’s Office has conducted an internal investigation into its former head, Ruslan Kravchenko.
Acting Prosecutor General Anton Kovalskyi told journalists this, Censor.NET reports.
What is known?
An internal disciplinary investigation was also conducted into Kropyva, a figure in Operation Carthage.
"No vehicles belonging to the Prosecutor General’s Office were used for Kravchenko’s departure abroad. On Sunday, when he left the country, he sent a message to the State Guard Administration saying that he was declining protection.
Before that, at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, he summoned the head of the Prosecutor General’s Office department responsible for protecting state secrets and asked her for the Office’s official seal bearing the national coat of arms. The seal must be kept in that department, but the prosecutor general is entitled to take it. He kept it and said he would return it on Monday," Kovalskyi said.
Kravchenko was at work on both Saturday and Sunday.
"No employee of the international department printed the travel order. There is a very high probability, 99%, that he printed it himself, signed it and affixed the seal," the acting prosecutor general added.
Kovalskyi added that Kravchenko had committed a disciplinary offence warranting dismissal from the prosecution service.
"I dismissed him promptly on the basis of his resignation letter because Ukrainian society would not have wanted to wait for the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors and the official procedures. That would have taken two to three months.
Had he been in Ukraine, we might have waited. As it was, the outcome would have been the same: he would have been dismissed," he explained.
The internal investigation has now been completed. It established that Kravchenko had used an invitation from a foreign state without valid grounds to travel abroad.
"No financial losses were caused to the prosecution authorities," he concluded.
Kravchenko’s resignation and the allegations against Kryvonos
- Earlier, Ruslan Kravchenko said he had signed notices of suspicion against NABU Director Semen Kryvonos and a person close to the head of the SAPO.
- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the Verkhovna Rada to immediately support Ruslan Kravchenko’s dismissal as Prosecutor General.
- NABU and SAPO called Kravchenko’s actions a continuation of a systematic attack on anti-corruption bodies.
- According to the Anti-Corruption Action Centre, Kravchenko left Ukraine on the night of September 14.
- The Prosecutor General later said he was currently abroad on a business trip.
- According to Censor.NET sources, Kravchenko registered his trip abroad as an official business trip to Brussels.
- The Prosecutor General later said that NABU Director Kryvonos is suspected of fictitious adoption to evade criminal liability.
- On September 14, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered the suspension of Ruslan Kravchenko as Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
- The Prosecutor General’s Office denied reports that Semen Kryvonos had allegedly been served with a notice of suspicion.
- Kravchenko accused NABU of trying to have the notice of suspicion against the bureau’s director, Semen Kryvonos, revoked through backroom arrangements.
- On 15 September, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree dismissing Ruslan Kravchenko from the post of Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
- Kravchenko himself said he had travelled abroad to, as he put it, "inform international partners about the real state of affairs within the anti-corruption agencies".
- On September 24, Ukrainska Pravda reported that it had found Kravchenko in Vienna, the Austrian capital. According to the publication, he and his wife are registered in Austria at the address of a company’s office. Among other activities, the company sells pre-registered companies.
