Four Ukrainian Rada deputies who accused Poroshenko, Obama of robbing Ukraine become subject of criminal inquiry
KYIV. Feb 25 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office has registered a criminal case against a group of Opposition Platform - For Life party parliamentarians, including Rinat Kuzmin, Mykola Skorik, Nestor Shufrych, and Yuri Zahorodnyi, for falsely reporting a crime, Petro Poroshenko's lawyer and the leader of his European Solidarity party, Ihor Golovan, said.
"On December 17 of last year, a group of people's deputies from the Opposition Platform -For Life faction filed with the NABU [National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine] a parliamentary claim about what in their view may have amounted to a $100 billion theft from Ukraine by former U.S. President Barack Obama and President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, and power takeover in Ukraine by the ex-administration of the U.S. president, and - as the claim states - its network of agents led by Poroshenko," Golovan was quoted by the party's press service as saying.
The claim does not cite any evidence, its authors were trying to mislead NABU detectives, he said.
"This is a baseless and false accusation [alleging] unconfirmed crimes, namely: a hypothetical assumption made by an opponent of the U.S. Democratic Party, probably in the framework of political infighting ahead of the U.S. presidential election," Golovan said.
The claim should be regarded as a knowingly false claim of a crime, he said.
Such legal "fakes" should be denounced and the four deputies held to account in accordance with the Criminal Code of Ukraine, since their actions undermine Ukraine's international standing and bear the hallmarks of interference in the U.S. election campaign, the lawyer said.