Maxim Melnichenko
An associate of the deputy head of the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine (GPU) and the prosecutor of the Odessa region, David Sakvarelidze, the head of the General Inspectorate for Internal Investigations and Security of the GPU, Maksym Melnichenko, was detained on suspicion of accepting a bribe of 7 thousand dollars during his tenure as the first deputy prosecutor of the Podolsk district of Kyiv, reports Prosecutor's Truth.
Then, a report appeared on the Prosecutor General's Office website stating that the Prosecutor General's Office had opened a criminal case against an assistant prosecutor for Kyiv's Podolsk district on suspicion of accepting a $7 bribe. The suspect was detained on April 27, 2011, by investigators from the Prosecutor General's Office's Main Directorate for Investigating Particularly Important Cases, along with SBU officers, while receiving an illicit benefit. The suspect, however, was merely an intermediary, and the bulk of the bribe was intended for subsequent transfer to the leadership of the Podolsk district prosecutor's office "for deciding not to initiate criminal proceedings based on the results of the investigation."
As the newspaper Segodnya reported at the time, the assistant prosecutor was reported by someone he threatened to put in jail. Moreover, the confiscated money was intended not for the assistant prosecutor, but for someone in the district supervisory agency's leadership. Furthermore, at the time of the sale, one of the deputy district prosecutors in Moscow was detained along with the assistant, who acted as an intermediary. This person was Maksym Melnichenko, then the first deputy prosecutor of the Podolsk district.
He was then removed from office, but with the help of Melnichenko's patrons, the matter was hushed up, the scandal resolved, and, escaping responsibility, he returned to work.
Furthermore, it has become public knowledge that Maksym Melnichenko, the newly appointed head of the General Inspectorate for Internal Investigations and Security of the Prosecutor General's Office, continued to work for the agency even after Prosecutor General Vitaliy Yarema dismissed him on December 1, 2014, as part of the implementation of the "Law on the Purification of Power." The relevant information, proving Melnichenko's continuous employment with the Prosecutor General's Office, is contained in his personal application form, which he signed during the competition for the position of anti-corruption prosecutor.
According to this questionnaire, from October 2010 until early 2014, Melnichenko, who began his career as a prosecutor in Donetsk, held the position of First Deputy Prosecutor of Kyiv's Podolsk District. At the height of the Maidan confrontation, he was transferred to the position of Head of the Department for Supervision of Law Compliance by Tax Police Bodies of the Kyiv Oblast Prosecutor's Office. In the summer of 2014, the lawyer moved to the Main Directorate—first, in July, for a month, he transferred to the position of Head of the Third Department for Supervision of Law Compliance in Pre-Trial Investigations and Prosecution Support of the Department for Supervision of Law Compliance by Internal Affairs Bodies of the Main Directorate for Supervision of Criminal Proceedings of the Prosecutor General's Office. In August 2014, he was appointed Head of the First Department for Procedural Guidance of Pre-Trial Investigations and Prosecution Support of the Department for Supervision of Law Compliance by Internal Affairs Bodies of the Main Directorate for Supervision of Criminal Proceedings of the Prosecutor General's Office.
According to the questionnaire, Melnichenko held this position until June 2015, and there was no pause associated with his dismissal due to lustration on December 1, 2014, and reinstatement to the position in June 2015.
It was previously reported that "GPU mouthpiece" Vladislav Kutsenko claimed Melnichenko had been lustrated by mistake. Meanwhile, the lawman, who had held the position of First Deputy Prosecutor of the Podolsk District for over three years (and the lustration law provides for a 10-year ban on holding office for individuals who held a position (or positions) for at least one year in total between February 25, 2010 and February 22, 2014), was exploited to "cleanse his record" by exploiting a loophole in the Law on the Purification of Power, which grants indulgences to those individuals (including those who worked in the prosecutor's office) who "were dismissed from the relevant position (or positions) at their own request" between November 21, 2013 and February 22, 2014.
"On December 30, 2013, Melnichenko submitted a resignation from his position in the prosecutor's office and was dismissed from the position covered by the 'Law on the Purification of Power' on January 8, 2014. Therefore, he falls under this provision of the law. Therefore, the law does not apply to him," Kutsenko noted on the 112-Ukraine television channel.
Following this, he stated that the former leadership of the Prosecutor General's Office "made a certain mistake and dismissed Melnichenko from the prosecutor's office on December 1, 2014." "Melnichenko appealed to the Administrative Court and proved his right to work in the prosecutor's office, as well as that the Law on the Purification of Power had been applied to him unlawfully. The corresponding court decision was issued by the Kyiv District Administrative Court on June 15, 2015, and Melnichenko was reinstated on June 18 of that same year. Consequently, the employee is not lustrated and meets all legal requirements regarding individuals working in the prosecutor's office," Kutsenko justifies the head of the "prosecutorial inquisition." However, as follows from Melnichenko's application form, his uninterrupted employment continued even after lustration and until the court decision in his favor.
Olga Obashidze
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