The Supreme Court of Ukraine (SCU) has passed a judgment about the criminal case opened against former governors of the Slovyansky Bank. According to the ruling handed down by Vasyl Maliarenko, SCU deputy chairman and chief of its criminal division, the case has been referred to the Luhansk Court of Appeal, Supreme Court spokesperson Liana Shliaposhnykova told The Day. Now the Luhansk chief judge must decide which of the local trial courts will hear the case.
Although the 113 volumes of the case (the indictment statement alone consists of 1000 pages) have been handed over to the judiciary, the Slovyansky Bank investigation has not been wrapped up but is extending to other actions by bank executives. In particular, the Slovyansky Bank’s financial and economic performance in 1996-2000 is still under a comprehensive documentary audit, with special emphasis on how the bank extended credit to Ukrainian industrial enterprises, such as Zaporizhstal, Dniprospetsstal, the Nikopol Ferrous Alloy Combine, the Dnipro Steel Mill, the Sumy-based Frunze Research and Production Association; the Pivdenny (Southern), Pivnichny (Northern), Inhulets, and Central Ore-Enriching Combines, the Makiyivka Steel Mill, and others. According to Sviatoslav Piskun, deputy chief of the tax police and chief of the investigations department at the State Tax Administration of Ukraine, investigators have already found that hundreds of thousands of dollars were transferred to the personal accounts of some top executives of these enterprises. “The investigators regard this as bribes for permission to export underpriced metallurgical products from Ukraine to offshore areas. Preliminary audit results show that these enterprises suffered a total UAH 1 billion loss as a result of the loans granted on the Slovyansky Bank’s conditions,” Mr. Piskun declared. Receiving loans from Slovyansky, the Ukrainian industrial enterprises had to supply their own products as payment for these loans at a price several times below the official price, thus incurring tremendous losses (which resulted in wage and pension arrears, social problems for hundreds of thousands of workers, etc.).
It is clear even now that the crimes allegedly committed by Slovyansky top executives are so serious that they constitute a danger not only to certain individuals and enterprises but also to the state as a whole. According to Mr. Piskun, these financial crimes display an obvious political side, “We know very well who organized and how in Ukraine a criminal financial political group with the purpose of embezzling as much as possible, transferring the stolen money to personal accounts abroad, and then using these funds for dirty political technologies against the Ukrainian people.”
INCIDENTALLY
President Leonid Kuchma has thanked Mykola Azarov, Chairman of the State Tax Administration of Ukraine, for taking the Slovyansky Bank affair to court. The chief executive announced this on November 9, addressing local government officials in Vinnytsia Oblast, reports Interfax-Ukraine.
