The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine (PGO) has opened criminal proceedings against Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) Artem Sytnyk because of the possible disclosure of investigative data, Ukrayinska Pravda reported late on Thursday, November 16, citing its own sources in the PGO.

According to the report, Sytnyk could be called in for questioning on Friday, November 17. At the same time, the NABU chief is now on a business trip in Portugal.

"The PGO has instituted criminal proceedings on the basis of an audio recording that was posted on the Internet, in which a man with a voice similar to Sytnyk's discloses to journalists the details of some high-profile cases," the report says.

As reported, a People's Front MP and an adviser to the interior minister, Anton Gerashchenko, ahead of a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada anti-corruption committee on November 15, made public an audio recording that may indicate a possible crime committed by Sytnyk.

"Several days ago, a conversation appeared on the Internet in which a person with a voice similar to Sytnyk's, at a meeting with unidentified individuals, reads out to them the materials of ... the phone tapping of the wife of Deputy Military Prosecutor [Kostiantyn] Kulyk [who is suspected by NABU and SAPO of illegal enrichment]. These materials are state secrets if they have not been declassified... The disclosure of these materials entails criminal liability under three articles of the Criminal Code – the violation of legislation on state secrets, the disclosure of the materials of the pre-trial investigation and the excess of office," Gerashchenko said.