Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has said that he sent to parliament a request for the criminal prosecution of current independent MP, ex-secretary of Kyiv City Council, Oles Dovhy.

"I have submitted to the Verkhovna Rada a request asking the parliament's consent to prosecute MP Dovhy, whose actions display signs of abuse of official duties committed in complicity [with other offenders] with the aim of unlawful seizure of ten land plots of the natural reserve fund - Zhukov Island wildlife sanctuary, with a total area of 44.25 hectares," Lutsenko wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday.

Earlier, member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction Mustafa Nayyem sent a query to Lutsenko and Head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) Nazar Kholodnytsky asking them to confirm the existence of the bill on removing the immunity from Dovhy.

He recalled that Dovhy is a suspect in a criminal case on the illegal allocation of land in the Zhukov Island wildlife sanctuary on the southern outskirts of Kyiv and may be prosecuted under Article 364 of the Criminal Code (abuse of power and office).

"In August 2007, Kyiv City Council issued a ruling to liquidate the Zhukov Island wildlife sanctuary, reducing its area to 196 hectares from 1,630 hectares. Later, the land left outside the sanctuary was distributed for housing construction, including to businesses close to [the then president of Ukraine] Viktor Yanukovych and his partner, MP Yuriy Ivaniuschenko," Nayyem added.

On June 20, Kholodnytsky said that he signed a submission to strip parliamentary immunity from Dovhy in the criminal proceeding on illegal allocation of land plots in Kyiv in 2007-2009 and has already sent it to the prosecutor general.