Natalia Korolevskaya
The court has revived the criminal investigation into the forgery of Natalia Korolevska, former Minister of Social Policy in Mykola Azarov's government. The Ministry of Internal Affairs had previously closed the investigation, despite the investigators themselves declaring the educational document to be a fake.
Kyiv's Pechersky District Court ruled illegal the decision of the Main Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to close the criminal case against former Minister of Social Policy and current Opposition Bloc MP Natalia Korolevska for a forged diploma.
The court decision was made on January 12 following the examination of the complaint of the plaintiff, a journalist whose name has not been disclosed.
According to the information provided, law enforcement began investigating Korolevskaya's "education" approximately three years ago. At that time, police obtained materials indicating that the then Minister of Social Policy had been using "fake" educational documents.
The investigation lasted a year and a half, from April 2013 to September 2014. The Main Investigative Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs investigated two facts: the forgery of an academic transcript dated July 6, 1993, and a diploma of education issued by the Volodymyr Dahl Eastern National University (both educational institutions are located in Luhansk) in the name of Natalia Korolevska.
The academic transcript in question indicated that the prominent politician allegedly studied at the International Institute of Management, Business, and Law in the early 90s. Thanks to this document, Korolevskaya was allowed to clear her academic debt in 1993 and transferred to her second year at Vladimir Dahl University.
However, as the investigation established, the International Institute of Management, Business, and Law did not have a license for educational activities. This was confirmed by the Department of Scientific Activities and Licensing of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. Moreover, the academic certificate bore the seal of the "Alchevsk Business Center." However, as the Alchevsk City Council's Education Department informed law enforcement (in the winter of 2014), there was no information about the existence of such a business center.
The criminal case also includes testimony from a witness who claimed that the Alchevsk Business Center seal was counterfeit and that the management of the Dahl Eastern Ukrainian National University assisted Korolevska in obtaining her diploma.
The future minister received her specialist diploma in 1997.
Despite all these facts, by order of the senior investigator of the Main Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Lidiya Girich, the criminal case was closed on September 18, 2014, due to the “absence of corpus delicti.”
The Pechersky Court, which took up the challenge to the illegality of this ruling, ruled that the proceedings could only be terminated after a comprehensive and complete investigation of the circumstances of the case and an assessment of the collected evidence. Meanwhile, "the materials of the criminal proceedings and the content of the contested ruling unequivocally demonstrate non-compliance with the law," the court concluded.
The fact is that the reason for closing the criminal case was the impossibility of establishing the location of the forged documents.
"By using this wording, the pre-trial investigation body effectively acknowledged the fact of the forgery and use of these documents," the court noted, clarifying that the impossibility of questioning certain individuals or requesting documents "cannot be grounds for terminating the proceedings."
Moreover, it turned out that Korolevskaya herself had never been questioned about this case during the entire eighteen months of the investigation, nor had the leadership of Vladimir Dahl University.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs' decision to close the criminal proceedings was overturned.
It is worth noting that this is not the only case in which Korolevskaya's name appears.
Last August, the Prosecutor General's Office gained access to the accounts of MP Natalia Korolevskaya's businesses to verify information about her involvement in terrorist financing.
As revealed by the Unified Register of Court Decisions, six months ago, investigators gained access to the accounts of PJSC Luganskholod and DP Lugansk Cold Storage Plant, both controlled by Natalia Korolevska.
According to these court documents, the Prosecutor General's Office is conducting an investigation based on media reports regarding the financing of terrorists by Ukrainian politicians (Part 1 of Article 258-5 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
Among other things, they are investigating reports that individuals close to them (Ukrainian politicians – ed.) have joined the leadership of the self-proclaimed organizations "Donetsk People's Republic" and "Luhansk People's Republic." Investigators indicate where and when this information was first reported in the media: December 29, 2014, on the YouTube video service.
On that day, a video appeared on YouTube in which Cossacks who controlled several cities in the Luhansk region demanded the resignation of the self-proclaimed leader of the militants, Igor Plotnitsky.
In his address to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Cossack leader Pavel Dremov stated the following: "Your protégés, Mr. Plotnitsky, steal railway trains carrying coal every day. I personally counted 164 today. There are documents confirming this... I'll tell you who Plotnitsky is: he's Natalya Korolevskaya's protégé. Now Yefremov's people are entering the Regional State Administration..."
This information has now become the subject of an investigation. Specifically, it is being investigated that "individuals close to a former Ukrainian MP (likely referring to Oleksandr Yefremov – ed.) are involved in the activities of the so-called 'Luhansk People's Republic,'" and that its leader, Igor Plotnitsky, is a protégé of a Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada MP (likely referring to Natalia Korolevska – ed.).
As a reminder, in February, Iryna Gerashchenko, a member of parliament and the president's commissioner for the peaceful settlement of the situation in Donbas, sent a corresponding request to the Prosecutor General's Office.
"Even little children in Donbas know that this lady (Korolevskaya), who tears her vests on camera 'for civilians,' continues to profit from illegal mines and the exploitation of unfortunate people as slave labor. Meanwhile, her ideological leader and political father, Yefremov, is drinking champagne in the Alps," Gerashchenko stated.
As of today, the Prosecutor General's Office has already received data from the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Revenue in the Luhansk region (dated March 5, 2015) that Korolevskaya controls a number of business entities in the occupied territory of the Luhansk region, in particular, OJSC Luganskholod and the State Enterprise Luhansk Cold Storage Plant.
According to the Main Directorate for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime of the Security Service of Ukraine, Luganskholod OJSC pays customs duties to the so-called "Luhansk People's Republic" and imports the raw materials needed for its production from the Russian Federation.
According to tax authorities, Luhansk Holodkombinat, a subsidiary of Luhanskholod Public Joint-Stock Company, uses accounts at Brokbusinessbank. According to the court's ruling, these accounts must be opened to "establish the circumstances of the financing of terrorist organizations using the bank accounts of these enterprises (through customs duties, taxes, and fees for the 'Luhansk People's Republic')."
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