SAPO head: Cooperation with Kravchenko strictly professional, technical; no communication over 'Carthage'
Ruslan Kravchenko, who was removed from his post as Prosecutor General and subsequently resigned amid an anti-corruption operation "Carthage," did not take the initiative to communicate with anti-corruption agencies, nor did those agencies offer to communicate, Head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) Oleksandr Klymenko.
"Cooperation was purely working-level and technical. The Prosecutor General is authorized – only in cases involving members of parliament – to approve investigative and covert surveillance operations targeting these members of parliament and to initiate investigations against them," Klymenko said at a briefing on Monday in Kyiv, responding to a question about how he would characterize his cooperation with Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko and whether Kravchenko had reached out to him in connection with the Carthage case.
"Did we communicate? No, we didn't; we didn't meet – there was no initiative whatsoever, either from him or from us, to establish any communication," SAPO head said.
In turn, Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine Semen Kryvonos who also participated in the briefing, added: "It's nonsense to suggest that we guaranteed or did not guarantee anything to him [Kravchenko]."