Aidar Battalion members should be held accountable for the kidnapping of Ukrspirt's CEO.

ukrspirtThe Aidarovites who helped Labutin escape must be punished – State Fiscal Service

Members of the Aidar Battalion should be held criminally responsible for assisting in the kidnapping of Mykhailo Labutin, CEO of the state-owned enterprise Ukrspirt.

This was announced by the First Deputy Head of the State Fiscal Service (SFS) Volodymyr Khomenko at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday.

"All the evidence has been collected today. Formally, it's a kidnapping, although Labutin says he made the arrangements with them (the Aidar fighters). How could he have made the arrangements if he was undergoing surgery? This suggests it was a planned operation, a provocation," he said.
According to him, the police have now opened an investigation into the kidnapping, and the military prosecutor's office will be involved in the investigation.

Khomenko noted that servicemen from the Aidar Battalion took part in the abduction; the State Fiscal Service has copies of their military IDs.

"Why aren't legal remedies being used? I don't know of a single lawyer representing Labutin. Why are people with guns, who should be dealing with other issues, turning to us, and why is all this happening in the center of Kyiv?" the first deputy head of the State Fiscal Service stated.

He clarified that Labutin's whereabouts remain unknown. According to law enforcement, his predecessor, Alexander Hart, is in Crimea.

As is known, Labutin is accused of embezzling funds from the state-owned enterprise Ukrspirt in the amount of more than 200 million UAH, of which 172,5 million UAH is embezzlement of state-owned enterprise funds, and 28,2 million UAH is tax evasion.

On December 19, fighters from the Aidar Battalion took Labutin from the hospital where he was undergoing inpatient treatment to an unknown location under the pretext of protecting him from an assassination attempt.

On December 22, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food suspended Labutin from his duties and appointed Viktor Pankov as acting director general in his place.

 

Interfax-Ukraine

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