Ex-Kyiv Mayor Chernovetsky says his son freed from arrest in Spain
KYIV. Aug 12 (Interfax) - An appeals court of Barcelona has freed Stepan Chernovetsky without bail or any other restrictions, Chernovetsky's father, former Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky, said on Facebook.
"The Barcelona court of appeals today, on August 12, 2016, freed my son, Stepan Chernovetsky, from custody without bail or any other preconditions. My family will provide all details concerning these proceedings and also our further actions to fully redress an injustice and punish those guilty of this absolutely wild charge that the Barcelona police brought against my son after lawyers' comments," he said.
Spain's El Mundo reported on July 12 that 11 people, including Stepan Chernovetsky, had been detained in Barcelona on suspicion of belonging to a criminal organization responsible for money laundering, forgery, and tax fraud.
El Pais reported that the ex-Kyiv mayor's son and other people had laundered about 10 million euro. The newspaper claimed that Stepan Chernovetsky and his accomplices bought a number of companies in Spain so as to launder money deposited in other countries, chiefly in Cyprus and in the Virgin Islands. It said Chernovetsky had been detained not in Barcelona but in an elite resort community in the Costa Brava.
El Pais claimed that the criminal organization in question included mostly people of Ukrainian origin.
At the same time, Leonid Chernovetsky insisted that his son had not been detained by Spanish law enforcement agencies but was questioned by police regarding another person at home.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said later that four Ukrainian citizens were detained in Barcelona on suspicion of financial fraud. The ministry did not name any names and said only that a Barcelona court classified the case, which made it impossible to disclose the detainees' personal data or any other details.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office forwarded an inquiry to its Spanish counterparts, seeking information about Stepan Chernovetsky.
Leonid Chernovetsky said on August 4 that his son's defense team had filed an appeal in Spain. "We have filed an appeal in many volumes. They contain conclusions by Stepan's banks and international auditing companies and detailed explanations of all bank transactions. And, what counts most, a hundred percent confirmation that all of his money to the last cent are from the sale of Pravex Bank in 2008 for $750 million and from investments in startups in various countries," Chernovetsky said in an interview published in Segodnya.
He suggested that his son could have been released on a bail of 720,000 euro.
