“They’ve Screwed Up the Case”: The Prosecutor General’s Office Has Taken on the State Bureau of Investigation

Thanks to the efforts of attorney Oleksiy Shevchuk, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine has opened a criminal case regarding the unlawful abuse of authority by Roman Truba, head of the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI).

As Alexei Shevchuk himself commented on the situation, the 27 candidates selected for leadership positions within the SBI are illegitimate, since their selection was, in essence, unlawful.

This refers to the procedure conducted by the selection committee, during which 27 candidates were selected for leadership positions in the new State Bureau, which will handle cases involving high-level corrupt officials.

According to Shevchuk, when drafting the order to hold the competition, the agency’s head, Roman Truba, failed to have the document approved by the Ministry of Justice.

“The entire competition conducted by Truba is illegal. The current process of staffing the State Bureau of Investigation is illegal. Roman Truba, having two deputies and serving as chairman, was required to conduct a legitimate competition in accordance with an order that was supposed to be approved by the Ministry of Justice and registered (regarding the procedure for conducting the competition). But the Ministry of Justice did not approve it. Truba simply appointed Viktor Taran, Oleg Bazar, and Volodymyr Boiko on a whim, pointing his finger at the sky. He delegated to these three unknown individuals the right to form the competition commissions,” explained Oleksiy Shevchuk.

Because of this violation, all future procedures and investigations by the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) may be deemed unlawful.

“Today, all selected SBI employees, except for the chairman and his deputies, are illegitimate. They were appointed by commissions that selected people without a corresponding order from the Ministry of Justice. The consequence of all this is that all these employees will conduct investigations illegitimately, and their evidence will also be illegitimate. All SBI investigations will amount to nothing,” Shevchuk believes.

At the same time, according to the lawyer, the situation surrounding the SBI may turn out to be even more complicated. After all, the question of the legitimacy of the Public Council itself—which is supposed to oversee the agency’s activities—remains unresolved.

“They, too, were elected illegitimately. In general, this Public Council has no authority and is not an effective body, since its members were also elected illegitimately. One member of the counting commission took a particular stance, stating that Korenna (Nadezhda Korenna, chair of the Public Council—Ed.) rigged the results. Among the three candidates with an equal number of votes, she selected the one she deemed appropriate. Moreover, two of the voting protocols were damaged. As of today, it remains unclear whether the Council’s composition is legitimate, since other individuals were present,” Shevchuk asserts.