Media: Ukrainian authorities banned the publication of the court's decision on 'Yanukovych’s billions'
The Military Prosecutor's office of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) forces of Ukraine banned the publication of the court's decision to confiscate $1.5 billion allegedly connected to the inner circle of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, as stated by the Acting Director General of the state enterprise "Judicial Information Systems" Dmytro Dubinko, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
"The decree of the Military Prosecutor's Office of the ATO forces on applying security measures to persons who participate in criminal proceedings... imposed an obligation to implement security measures in criminal proceedings... in the form of preventing the text of the judgment from becoming known to the public... until the pre-trial investigation in the framework of criminal proceedings is completed," was the answer provided by Dmytro Dubinko to the head of the anti-corruption department of the Eidos Center, Gleb Kanevsky. "Judicial Information Systems" is engaged in ensuring the work of the state register of court decisions.
$1.42 billion in bank accounts of non-resident companies allegedly connected to Yanukovych and his entourage were blocked in Ukrainian Oschadbank by the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine in late January 2015.
Yanukovych’s defense team filed a lawsuit, demanding to refute the information spread in Ukraine about the existence of such a sum that belongs to the president. Attorney Vitaly Serdyuk explained that in Ukraine, Yanukovych has accounts in two banks.
"In Raiffeisen Bank Aval he has 53,280 hryvnia or about $2,000. In Oschadbank there is an account for 28.78 million hryvnia or about $1 million, an account for 2.25 million hryvnia or about $84,000, as well as a US dollar account containing $84, 964," he said, adding that this data is supported by the bank statements, as well as the information provided in the decisions of the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv on the arrest of funds.
On April 28, 2017, the court of final appeal gave permission to confiscate the arrested $1.5 billion. Subsequently, they were transferred to the state budget. The Prosecutor General's Office referred to this as "confiscation of Yanukovych's money."
After that, seven Cypriot companies—holders of domestic government loan bonds—appealed the court’s decision. On May 25, the Court of Appeals of Donetsk region refused to consider the appeal regarding the confiscation of funds filed by lawyers of the companies allegedly connected to former president Viktor Yanukovych. On June 7, it became known that the judge of the Kramatorsk City Court transferred the confiscation decision to the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.