U.S. seeks to take court proceedings in case of Pavlo Lazarenko to Ukraine (05/04/03)

U.S. seeks to take court proceedings in case of Pavlo Lazarenko to Ukraine

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The Procurator General's Office of Ukraine confirmed on April 24 that Pavlo Lazarenko, the former prime minister who has spent the last three years in a detention center outside San Francisco, could return to Ukraine to take part in court proceedings organized by the United States Department of Justice.

U.S. law enforcement officials are completing a lengthy investigation into charges that Mr. Lazarenko laundered hundreds of millions of dollars through U.S. and other foreign banks and would like to interview witnesses in Ukraine before winding up their investigation.

Mr. Lazarenko is alleged to have illegally earned hundreds of millions of dollars through bribes and blackmail and his close ties with United Energy Systems, the gas and oil trading company founded and controlled by controversial National Deputy Yulia Tymoshenko. U.S. officials want to question scores of people living in Ukraine who had contact with Mr. Lazarenko and United Energy Systems as he and the firm rose from provincial pre-eminence in Dnipropetrovsk to the national spotlight in Kyiv in the mid-1990s.

The U.S. Department of Justice has submitted a list of 100 individuals it would like to question to the Procurator General's Office, among them high government officials and parliamentary lawmakers.

"U.S. authorities believe that Mr. Lazarenko must be present in Ukraine when witnesses for the prosecution are questioned," explained Vasyl Drahan, head of the special investigations department of the Procurator General's Office, speaking during a press conference.

Mr. Drahan added that, under the terms U.S. officials are requesting, Mr. Lazarenko would remain in detention while in Ukraine and would be returned to the U.S. immediately afterwards. He also said that, in accordance with U.S. law, the accused could not be forced to appear at a witness hearing against his will, an option that is available to Mr. Lazarenko.

Nonetheless, there is little reason at the moment to believe that Mr. Lazarenko would travel back to Ukraine, where he has been all but convicted of two charges of murder and is wanted on several other lesser charges, including embezzlement, misappropriation of government property and abuse of office.

"Lazarenko has the right to be present at interviews, but this does not mean he will use this right," explained Marina Dolhopola, his Ukrainian attorney, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

On April 17 a Kyiv court handed down a ruling in which it found a crime organization that has now been disbanded guilty of the murders of lawmakers Yevhen Scherban and Vadym Hetman. Prosecutors stated after the court verdict that the unnamed party found to have ordered the killings was Mr. Lazarenko, and the only reason he has not been brought to justice is because he is in a U.S. jail.

"However, it is clear to everyone to whom we refer," explained Volodymyr Huzyr, the head prosecutor in the case.

Law enforcement officials said they proved during the trial of eight members of the criminal gang, which specialized in assassination, that it had contracted with Mr. Lazarenko to kill Mr. Scherban in 1996 and then Mr. Hetman two years later. The eight defendants from the gang, which was led by crime boss Yevhen Kushnir, a Ukrainian who had taken Israeli citizenship, were arrested in February 2002. Mr. Kushnir is believed to have been murdered in 2000.

Three of the eight members of the group were found guilty of premeditated murder and were given life sentences. Two others were handed 15-year terms, while the last three were given 11 years in prison.

Mr. Scherban and his wife were gunned down at Donetsk Airport in November 1996 by a group of professional killers who posed as police officers and drove right up to the private plane on which the Scherbans were returning from Moscow and sprayed automatic fire on the passengers as they descended the steps to a waiting vehicle.

Mr. Hetman was shot at point blank range in April 1998 in the elevator of his apartment building as he returned from work in the evening.

Procurator Huzyr explained that the death of Mr. Scherban was ordered to remove business competition for control of Ukraine's natural gas industry. Mr. Scherban held operational control of United Energy System's chief rival at the time, the Donetsk-based Industrial Union of Donbas.

Mr. Hetman, chairman of the Interbank Currency Exchange and a former chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine was assassinated, according to the prosecutor, as a disliked political rival and for causing problems in Mr. Lazarenko's financial dealings and disruptions in his money flows.

The former prime minister has spent his time in a San Francisco detention center since he was arrested in New York on February 24, 1999, for attempting to illegally enter the U.S. Upon his arrest he claimed political asylum and was held for several weeks as that claim was being reviewed before the request was ultimately denied and he was instead charged with several counts of financial improprieties.

Mr. Lazarenko was Ukraine's prime minister from May 1996 to August 1997, when President Leonid Kuchma dismissed him on evidence of corruption. However, he was never charged, but instead became a member of the Verkhovna Rada and leader of the Batkivschyna Party, which he founded and which maintained a political stance in opposition to President Kuchma.

As prime minister he is believed to have helped United Energy Systems capture the gas trading market and become the largest company in Ukraine. At the time he was first detained in the United States Mr. Lazarenko was considered the richest person in Ukraine.

Mr. Lazarenko is expected to finally go to trial in a U.S. court in August of this year.

| Home Page |