Information Maidan accuses Interior Ministry of sabotaging investigation into cases against BRT head Ischuk
KYIV. Sept 24 (Interfax-Ukraine) –Information Maidan NGO has accused high-ranking officials of the Interior Ministry of sabotaging the investigation into criminal cases opened against Director General of Broadcasting, Radiocommunications & Television Concern (BRT) Volodymyr Ischuk.
One of the leaders of the organization, lawyer Maryna Pomazanova said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday that on September 18 a search was conducted by the investigator of the Shevchenkivsky District Department of the Interior Ministry in Kyiv in the presence of SBU officers and witnesses as a part of the criminal case against Ischuk and the search was stopped. The case was opened against him for the facts that he bought an elite apartment in Pechersky District of Kyiv using the BRT money.
"The search was stopped by a phone call of First Deputy Head of the Shevchenkivsky District Department of the Interior Ministry in Kyiv and Head of the Investigation Department Dmytro Shumeiko, who ordered that the investigator urgently stopped the search and leave the premises without recording this," Pomazanova said.
She said that Shumeiko explained his order by oral order of Police Colonel Serhiy Karpik, who is First Deputy Head of the Chief Department of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine in Kyiv and Head of the Investigation Department. He said that the order came from 10, Bohomoltsa Street where the Interior Ministry is located.
The lawyer said that the application to SBU and Public Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine that officials of the Interior Ministry committed a crime was submitted.
Pomazanova also said that Ischuk is also defendant in the case opened by SBU under Articles 113 and 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (sabotage and treason), which is linked to a fire at BRT on May 9, which resulted in a break of the holiday broadcasting all over Ukraine, and in the case opened under Article 110-2 of the Criminal Code: financing of actions committed with the purpose of changing the borders of the territory or the state border of Ukraine by top managers of BRT.
One of the leaders of Information Maidan Pavlo Bilonozhko said that at the situation created applications were also sent to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, the Cabinet of Ministers and the parliamentary committee for preventing and fighting corruption.