KYIV -- Ukrainian anticorruption investigators have opened a criminal case into suspected unlawful enrichment by the country’s powerful prosecutor-general, Yuriy Lutsenko.
The case against Lutsenko was opened by the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) on October 30, after it was presented with an order from the Solomyansky District Court of Kyiv, NABU spokeswoman Svitlana Olifira told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service on November 17.
Olifira said that no person in particular had spurred the court into action and that the pretrial investigation is ongoing.
But Renat Kuzmin, the former Ukrainian deputy prosecutor-general under former President Viktor Yanukovych, wrote on Facebook that the case was opened at his written request.
Yanuovych fled from Ukraine to Russia in February 2014 following months of Euromaidan street protests.
Kuzmin followed in June 2014 after he became a suspect in the criminal probe of the unlawful arrest of Lutsenko in 2010 when he was an opposition politician.
“Pursuant to my statement, NABU registered the case and began a criminal investigation into Lutsenko’s illegal enrichment,” Kuzmin said in a post that included a copy of his letter to NABU.
Lutsenko has not commented on the NABU investigation.
NABU is an independent investigative body created to stamp out entrenched corruption among Ukraine’s public servants.
Lutsenko had no legal experience prior to taking the job as head of the Prosecutor-General’s Office in May 2016.
He was the personal choice of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Parliament had to pass a law removing a requirement that only a person with a legal background could fill the post before Lutsenko was appointed.