Court permits access to YouTube U.S. servers in case against ex-deputy interior minister Chebotar
Pechersky district court of Kyiv has uphold a petition of Chief Investigator of Prosecutor General's Office in Ukraine Oleksiy Bohomolov asking for the access to servers of YouTube LLC located in California, the United States.
The investigators seek to reveal who posted pre-trial probe materials against former Deputy Interior Minister Serhiy Chebotar on YouTube video hosting.
Court order in case No. 757/8983/16-k dated March 2, 2016 signed by investigating judge Volodymyr Karaban was published in the state pre-trial investigation register.
"It was established during the pre-trial investigation that at 11:37 on December 5, 2015 unknown persons publicized pre-trial investigation data without a permit of the prosecutor and investigator… They posted an article on the Antikor website entitled "How Deputy Interior Minister Chebotar settled kickbacks worth of millions of hryvnias" and two video clips "How Chebotar was selling sand, Part 1" and How Chebotar was selling sand, Part 2." The clips contain information about circumstances of the crimes committed," the document says.
"An inquiry asking for international assistance in the criminal case was sent to the international legal cooperation department of Prosecutor General's Office for translation into English. The international legal cooperation department responded that translation was finished and the court ruling is required to get temporary access to the things and documents," the document says.
According to the court order, the investigator and members of the investigation group are to get temporary access to secret information and documents: the information stayed with YouTube LLC to establish what IP address and host was used to load the above-mentioned video clips to the YouTube servers. All personal and profile details of the user who loaded the clips to the servers and his e-mail address are to be received.
Early in April 2015, MP Yuriy Levchenko accused Chebotar of involvement in corruption. Chebotar tendered his resignation on May 13 after a scandal involving a journalists' investigation into his family's ownership of a land plot. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov accepted Chebotar's resignation on May 14.