Ukrainian Parliament votes 310-39 to strip Lazarenko of deputy's immunity

by Pavel Polityuk
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - The Verkhovna Rada voted 310-39 on February 17 to strip former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko of his legal immunity to allow him to face domestic charges of embezzlement and concealment of foreign income.

The vote came despite dramatic last-ditch efforts by National Deputy Lazarenko, who also faces money-laundering charges in Switzerland but had immunity as a national deputy at home, to postpone the vote due to recent heart problems.

"Ukraine's Parliament orders that approval be given to the institution of criminal proceedings against and arrest of National Deputy Pavlo Lazarenko," Verkhovna Rada Chairman Oleksander Tkachenko told the session after the vote.

Mr. Tkachenko said 310 of the chamber's 450 deputies (371 were registered to vote on that day) had voted in favor of the measure. In accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine, at least 301 must support the lifting of a deputy's parliamentary immunity for it to take effect.

Mr. Lazarenko, who was absent from the session, wrote to the Parliament that day saying recent heart problems had prevented him from attending the session.

The Rada chairman read a letter from Deputy Lazarenko in which he said he had checked into a clinic in Greece earlier that week after suffering symptoms similar to a heart attack.

Mr. Tkachenko also read out a translation of a report by attending doctors in Greece: "Lazarenko was hospitalized with the following symptoms: high blood pressure, pain in the region of the heart, nausea, drowsiness, cold sweat and rapid pulse - symptoms of a myocardial infarction," the report said. "It will require several more days to make an exact diagnosis of the patient," it was noted.

Mr. Lazarenko said his condition had been caused by intense political pressure.

Despite Mr. Lazarenko's absence, members of Parliament decided to go ahead with the day's scheduled debate. They heard Procurator General Mykhailo Potebenko accuse Mr. Lazarenko of allegedly embezzling more than $1 million in state property while holding various government positions from 1993 to 1997.

Mr. Potebenko said Mr. Lazarenko had illegally opened foreign bank accounts, using them to hide foreign currency income worth 4.4 million Swiss francs and $1.17 million (U.S.), and accused him of abusing his official position.

The Procurator General's Office had requested that the Verkhovna Rada lift the immunity of the former prime minister. Prosecutors said that under the Criminal Code of Ukraine the 46-year-old Mr. Lazarenko could face up to 15 years in prison.

In early December 1998 the ex-prime minister, who heads the influential Hromada Party that has proclaimed itself an official opposition to President Leonid Kuchma, was detained near Basel when he tried to enter Switzerland on a Panamanian passport.

But Mr. Lazarenko said he is the victim of a political plot to eliminate him as a rival before the 1999 presidential election in Ukraine. He has denied both the Swiss and Ukrainian charges, and has on several occasions in recent months said they are politically motivated - most recently in an interview published on February 15 in The New York Times.

President Kuchma is widely expected to seek a second five-year term in the elections scheduled for October. Mr. Lazarenko, an outspoken critic of the president, also plans to run.

Last month the Hromada Party named Mr. Lazarenko as its single candidate for the presidency.

"I see prejudice in the efforts of Ukraine's procurator general and his desire to bring criminal charges against me at any price and arrest me," Mr. Tkachenko quoted Mr. Lazarenko as writing to the Parliament. "Such haste and lack of ceremony is not coincidental in the lead-up to the presidential elections," Mr. Lazarenko noted.

But Ukrainian officials, as well as many deputies, say there is no talk about political motivation in the accusations against Lazarenko - only criminal matters.

"Today we give our law-enforcement bodies the possibility to investigate this criminal avalanche," Serhii Dovhan, the leader of Ukraine's Peasants Party, told fellow deputies.

"Our solution to allow this investigation may become the beginning of the end of the system that destroyed Ukraine as a big European state," he said.

"We hope this case will be brought to court and that a just sentence will be handed down," President Kuchma's spokesman, Oleksander Martynenko, said after the vote.

Meanwhile, various news sources reported on February 17 that Mr. Lazarenko had left Greece and that his whereabouts are unknown.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 21, 1999, No. 8, Vol. LXVII

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