2023-11-02T20:53:00+02:00 Politics 2024-09-15T04:57:10+03:00

Ukrainian news

NACP protocol on conflict of interest of Prosecutor General Kostin not submitted to court for more than year -

NACP protocol on conflict of interest of Prosecutor General Kostin not submitted to court for more than year - Nazar Prykhodko

The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) compiled a protocol on the conflict of interest of Andrii Kostin, who now heads the Prosecutor General’s Office. Court proceedings of the protocol are blocked. Political expert Nazar Prykhodko announced this on Facebook.

The protocol refers to the time when Andrii Kostin was a parliamentarian and headed the Verkhovna Rada committee on legal policy. His daughter Anastasia became an assistant to a Member of Parliament from the Servant of the People Andrii Zadorozhnyi, and Zadorozhnyi's son Ivan became an assistant to Kostin.

These and other VIP relatives among MPs’ assistants were then discovered by Radio Svoboda journalists. From September 2019 and at least until October 2021, Anastasia Kostina and Ivan Zadorozhnyi received UAH 26,000 of a monthly salary for a budget cost.

"The NACP saw in that a conflict of interest, compiled a protocol. My source claims that from then to today this case is on pause - no movement towards litigation... If you are a parliamentarian, the prospects of being prosecuted for a corruption crime are slim. If you are the Prosecutor General - zero," the report said.

Nazar Prykhodko recalled that after the start of russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Anastasia Kostina went abroad, where she fell into a high-profile scandal. And Andrii Kostin headed the PGO. In a note, the expert appealed to the NACP with a question whether such a protocol was really drawn up. And also to Kostin and his daughter: "does the post not press and how is it in Monaco".

As previously reported, in October 2021, the journalists of the Schemes program counted at least 12 relatives of parliamentarians who help other MPs for money.

In 2021, Andrii Kostin participated in the competition for the post of the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, but experts from public organizations attributed him to candidates with a dubious reputation. The Anti-Corruption Center also wrote that the Verkhovna Rada committee headed by Kostin on legal policy blocked the judicial reform.

On July 28, 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed Andrii Kostin as the head of the PGO.

In August 2023, Kostin's daughter Anastasia complained on social media about her life abroad.