The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has opened a criminal investigation into allegations of treason, espionage, abuse of office, misappropriation, and embezzlement on the part of former head of Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) Vasyl Hrytsak.

The NABU press service told Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday that on October 25 the High Anti-Corruption Court ordered NABU to open an inquiry in which Hrytsak is implicated.

No details of the case were provided.

The Solomiansky District Court of Kyiv instructed NABU to add information about violations committed by Hrytsak, his first deputy and other officers of the National Bureau of Investigation, the Prosecutor's Office, and the Volyn region's police to the unified register of pretrial investigations.

The court issued this ruling on August 2, granting lawyer Andriy Petryshak's complaint pointing to NABU officers' lack of action. According to the document, this information is to be included in the register within a 24-hour period after NABU receives a copy of the ruling, which cannot be appealed.

The authorities were alerted to possible violations of "abuse of power", "forgery in office", and "obtaining improper disadvantages" by lawyer Kazak on July 16.

Apart from the SBU head and his first deputy - the head of the SBU's Main Directorate for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime (Pavlo Demchyna held the position until May 18, 2019; Ivan Bakanov took over on May 22), the investigators are also suspecting a prosecutor in the Volyn region, the head of the region's Main Investigative Directorate and his deputy, and the head of the Investigative Directorate of the National Police in the same region and his deputy.

On August 16, in accordance with the Solomiansky District Court's ruling, NABU opened a criminal inquiry against Hrytsak, Demchyna, and other officers of law enforcement agencies suspected of prosecuting an innocent person.