The High Anti-Corruption Court (HAAC), by its decision dated January 13, ordered the prosecutor general to consider a motion to transfer criminal proceedings on suspicion of the deputy head of the President's Office from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) back to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU).

"In his decision, the judge of the HACC says that one of the facts that is being investigated under this proceeding is the provision of an unlawful benefit to an official by the MP of Ukraine. Consequently, a criminal offense under Part 3 of Article 369 was committed by the MP of Ukraine and, according to Article 216 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, can only be investigated by NABU detectives," the NABU press service said.

The NABU said that the decision to transfer the case to the SBU in the future may lead to the fact that the perpetrators will avoid responsibility for the crime, since all the evidence collected will be declared inadmissible by the court due to the investigation by an inappropriate agency.

"Limited investigative jurisdiction is provided for NABU and SAPO, defined by lawmakers as a guarantee of an effective and impartial pretrial investigation of corruption crimes committed by top officials. The law directly prohibits the transfer of cases in which crimes under investigation by the NABU are investigated to other pretrial investigation agencies," the court's judge said.

Director of NABU in agreement with the acting the head of the SAPO turned to the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) with a decision to request criminal proceedings in accordance with Articles 110, 216 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and Article 17 of the law of Ukraine on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. In addition, the director of NABU sent to the PGO a resolution on the need to instruct the pretrial investigation in this case to the NABU detectives, taking into account the provisions of Article 216 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine.

"However, the prosecutor general does not comply with these decisions," the NABU said.

Later, Tatarov denied NABU's information about the HACC decision.

"The information made public by NABU that the HACC allegedly made a decision against me is not true. The Highe Anti-Corruption Court refused to initiate the appeal," he wrote on the Telegram channel on Friday.