‘Inconvenient’ investigators squeezed out of PGO through reorganization mechanism – Horbatiuk

The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine (PGO) uses a mechanism to squeeze out the investigators, “inconvenient” for the leadership.

This was stated by Serhiy Horbatiuk, the Head of the Special Investigations Unit at the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, LIGA Novosti Ukrainian news outlet reports.

“During 26 years of development of the prosecutor’s office, the people have been appointed to certain posts not due to their professional skills, but due to the principle of loyalty to the leadership. Often, the employees, who did not obey the instructions of leadership, including unlawful ones, were squeezed out of the system in different ways,” Serhiy Horbatiuk said.

According to him, the “undesirable” investigators are fired through the mechanism of reorganization of the PGO’s Main Investigation Department. During ten years of his work at the position of the investigator, 14 reorganizations have taken place.

“Two words are changed in the title of a structural department, and the persons who enjoy trust of the leadership are appointed to the posts. Other people are transferred to other departments or fired. Thus, it is possible to decide on the closure of proceedings, failure to investigate the cases over corruption,” Horbatiuk said.

Earlier, member of the Attorneys’ Advisory Group Yevhenia Zakrevska reported that submission of new materials of the Prosecutor General’s Office over crimes committed during Maidan protests to the International Criminal Court was under threat. Since Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaliy Kasko was dismissed, the PGO stopped cooperation with the Global Rights Compliance and the non-governmental organizations.