Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko has released a video which he claims is the first installment of unlawful actions committed by National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) Director Semen Kryvonos. The video is titled "Father of Convenience".
"Episode No. 1. Part One. The court established the fact of a crime in Semen Kryvonos' actions. But no punishment followed: he fictitiously adopted a child and unlawfully obtained grounds for exemption from liability—amnesty. Later, with this past, he successfully passed a competition involving international experts and headed NABU," Kravchenko commented on the video clip.
The video itself features a transcript of the interrogation of a woman whose child the NABU Director allegedly adopted. The woman in the video claims to have no relationship with Kryvonos.
"In June 2009, Holosiyivsky District Court... considered a case involving charges brought against Kryvonos.... Specifically, that acting in a prior conspiracy by a group of persons, he committed an intentional crime against the electoral rights of citizens," the video states.
The video then presents a fragment of an interview with Kryvonos during the competitive selection of candidates for the post of NABU Director.
In particular, in the cited fragment, Kryvonos explains to a member of the competition commission the circumstances surrounding the closure in 2010 of the case against him regarding the transfer of UAH 15,000 to students for voting for the Batkivshchyna party.
In the video, Kryvonos speaks about his civic activism as a student and the fabricated accusations: "Law enforcement representatives were essentially set upon us at that time. They acted very rudely, and several students were detained. There were no bribes—that is all nonsense. I had no idea about any search, and I was not hiding."
At the same time, as claimed in the story published by Kravchenko, Kryvonos "knowingly misled the members of the competition commission" and developed "a criminal plan, the implementation of which subsequently allowed him to be exempted from criminal liability."
According to information in the video, "Semen Kryvonos criminal plan consisted of creating an artificial ground under which he would have the right to fall under amnesty. One of such legislative grounds at that time was an individual having a minor child."
The video goes on to state that Kryvonos accomplice "found him an unmarried woman who had a child, and the information about the father in the birth registration book was recorded at the mother’s direction."
According to the video, the mother of the minor child was misled: she was persuaded to help Kryvonos under the pretext that his employer allegedly needed documents confirming he had a dependent child.
"As established by the investigation, after legally acquiring paternity over someone else’s child, Semen Kryvonos had no intention whatsoever of fulfilling parental duties," the video states.
Subsequently, as claimed in the clip, based on the documents of paternity, Kryvonos filed a motion for amnesty, and on June 25, 2009, the court released Kryvonos from criminal liability in connection with the application of the law "On Amnesty." "The case regarding the charges against Kryvonos for bribing students was closed in the same manner," the video clip states.
In May 2018, as claimed in the video published by the Prosecutor General, Kryvonos applied to the court with a claim to exclude information about him as a father, and the court satisfied this claim.
The clip summarizes that Kryvonos, in order to evade criminal liability for bribing students, thus "developed and implemented a criminal intent consisting of falsifying the birth certificate and misleading the court."
The video specifies that under this episode, Kryvonos has been served a notice of suspicion under Parts 2 and 3 of Article 358 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
