The prosecutor's office chose the weakest episode and turned a blind eye to the real millions.
The weakest point of the charges against Olena Lukash is the answer to the question regarding the former minister's profit from the tender for which she is under suspicion. The prosecutor's office explains that the connection between Lukash and the 2,5 million hryvnias allocated to the tender winners is still under investigation. This was reported in a report by Alisa Yurchenko on the program "Nashi Groshi" (ZIK TV channel).
The Prosecutor General's Office suspects former Justice Minister Olena Lukash of embezzling 2,5 million hryvnias from the state budget and committing official forgery. The crime was allegedly committed by conspiracy among a group of individuals.
The tender in question dates back to 2013. The Ministry of Justice commissioned three comparative legal studies on the adaptation of domestic legislation to European law. The European Legal Group received UAH 920 for its 686-page study. Lawyer Oleksiy Kalmykov, a former employee of the Kherson Oblast Prosecutor's Office, received UAH 930 for a study of over 500 pages. Entrepreneur Anna Sapelnikova, a partner of Oleksandr Granovsky, a former employee of the Cabinet of Ministers' Economic and Financial Department, received UAH 680 for a 149-page study.
Thus, the cost of one page for the Ministry of Justice during Lukash's tenure ranged from 1400 to 4500 hryvnias. The Ministry paid the highest price to Anna Sapelnikova. Meanwhile, her study on the adaptation of EU civil aviation legislation to Ukrainian law contains comments on individual sentences and paragraphs such as "Nonsense!", "What a profound thought!", "No opinion," "Déjà vu," "This is already stated at the beginning of the section!" and others. The author of these comments is unknown.
The Prosecutor General's Office's main complaint concerns the quality of the research conducted and the price the Ministry of Justice paid for it. Research materials completed as part of a tender under Elena Lukash are still posted on the Ministry of Justice's website. The quality of the information in files downloaded from the official website is indeed seriously questionable—the legal materials contain emotional comments made in edit mode.
The current Minister of Justice Pavel Petrenko (Read more about it in the article Pavel Petrenko, the "pocket" boy of the Yatsenyuk "Family") reported that after his appointment, an audit was conducted at the Ministry of Justice, in particular, regarding this 2013 tender, and the materials were transferred to the Prosecutor General's Office.
However, the main question now is: what does Lukash have to do with this? The aforementioned winners of the Ministry of Justice procurement had won similar tenders long before she took over the ministry—this is easily confirmed by the "Government Procurement Bulletin." Both the former minister and the contractors claim they are not acquainted with each other, and the funds went to the tender winners and the contractors directly involved.
Furthermore, Elena Lukash was not a member of the Ministry of Justice's competitive bidding committee; she merely approved its composition, meaning, in accordance with her official duties, she did not decide on the tender winners. The competitive bidding committee consisted of 17 members from various departments within the Ministry of Justice, five of whom were representatives of the minister's office. Therefore, the case against Lukash may fall apart unless the prosecution proves the suspect's intent and motive.
The aforementioned 2,5 million hryvnia tender is the only reason the prosecutor's office has so far charged Lukash after nearly two years of investigating economic crimes committed by the Viktor Yanukovych regime. But the former minister's family's fortune raises questions not about millions, but about tens of millions of hryvnias.
The former head of the Ministry of Justice and her mother own at least five luxury properties in central Kyiv. Among them is an elegant house of almost 800 square meters on a 0,07-hectare plot in Tsarskoe Selo, on the Pechersk Hills of Kyiv. This mansion and its plot were purchased in June 2013 by Olena Lukash's mother, who was retired. The minimum price for properties here is 50 million hryvnias. Locals say the Lukash family purchased the house fully completed, and the former minister lives there.
Furthermore, it was discovered that in December 2011, another Kyiv apartment was registered in Elena Lukash's mother's name—at 23 Vetrova Street, near the Botanical Garden, with a total area of 86 square meters. Elena Lukash is also the owner of three more apartments, measuring 127, 125, and 111 square meters, in a modern residential building in Podil, at 7/9 Yaroslavsky Lane in Kyiv. The date of their acquisition is unknown; locals say the building was built about eight years ago.
For the previous eight years before her release from the Ministry of Justice, Olena Lukash held government positions, as did her husband, Grigory Ilyashov. The former minister arrived at the court hearing in a 2009 Lexus RX 350, accompanied by a security guard and a driver. Olena Lukash's declared income in 2011 and 2012 was just over 200 hryvnias, or 18-19 hryvnias per month.
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Alisa Yurchenko, published on the website bihus.info
Translation: Argument
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