by Evgen Zakharov, Olena Shostko

Dear Minister Lutsenko,

As we learned from a TV Simon newscast on April 15, 2005, Mykhailo Prytula, whom you appointed Chief of Organized Crime Control Division in Kharkiv Oblast, was dismissed from his office. It is the pace at which it all happened that cannot but invite our enquiries.

On April 13, 2005, in a statement before the members of the Parliament's Organized Crime and Corruption Control Committee holding its ad hoc session in Khrakiv, Mr. Prytula linked Mr. I Chekotylo, recently posted as Chief of Criminal Police to the Oblast Administration of the Interior Ministry, to an attempt of releasing from custody the suspects in a gas distillate fraud.

Statements like that one would have been unheard of in the Kuchma-ruled Ukraine, indeed; they may and ought to be made in the new Ukraine, and at conferences of this nature in particular. An officer not bound by the fetters of the local law enforcement 'system of reference', Mykhailo Prytula, the one who invited assistance of the public, must have taken your appeals for cleansing the police and for their ethics at their face value. The level of the conference and Mr. Prytula's track record alike give no reason to believe that an official of his caliper would choose to misinform other attendees or use the opportunity just to take revenge - all the more so that he is new to Kharkiv.

In the past five years, Organized Crime Division of Kharkiv had been 'sick and very dangerous' to the public at large, testimony to which were the words of Mr. Volodymyr Stretovych, Chairman of the Committee ('In recent years Kharkiv was leading in the number of complaints to the Committee on actions of this special unit'), those of Governor Arsen Avakov (during the campaign his communications were wiretapped and his person under surveillance by Division's officers)and many business people.

There are other grounds to believe that the Division performed otherwise very poorly. Admittedly, over the past five years the number of offences related to illegal drug trafficking was on the rise, and it is in this criminal field that organized crime groups tend to crop up earlier than elsewhere. Narcotics are a very lucrative criminal business. In Kharkiv, therefore, with its estimated 20,000 regular drug users, members of the special squad would appear to be pretty busy. However, in 1999-2002 only 9 (!) cases were committed to court, bringing charges of organized drug crime. Regrettably, we have no knowledge so far as to the number of eventual convictions; in practice, though, at the final stage of proceedings it tends to reduce by half.

A source in the Supreme Court of Ukraine reports that, in 2002, Kharkiv set the Ukrainian record in interception warrants - 4000 of these were issued (the measure may only be allowed where serious and grave crimes are investigated). That year 51 organized crime cases were solved, and the number remained virtually the same in the subsequent two years. Whose communications were then wiretapped by Organized Crime, on what grounds, and what was the effectiveness of those measures?

We believe that a senior officer of the Organized Crime Division (Mr. I Chekotylo was a deputy to the Chief of the unit concerned) should not get a promotion while the matter has not been completely cleared up. This is, however, what has happened in the case. We would then seek to understand the reasons for his preferment. Following Mr. Prytula's allegations a fact-finding commission was set up under the Oblast Department. Whay have you not waited until it delivered its conclusions? The situation in Kharkiv Oblast warrants your immediate and close attention.

The experience that the Kharkiv Human Rights Group has gained protecting citizens' rights in pretrial investigation gives us grounds to believe that the Organized Crime Control Division was a unit where detainees were subject to unlawful treatment. Governor Avakov himself called it a 'political persecution' authority.

As far as Mr. I Chekotylo goes, there are media reports of his involvement in serious violations in 1999-2004. Although the facts reported in the press and on the Internet may not be considered a perfect proof of guilt, the mere fact that they were published over several years, and what is more, the ill-famed years when journalists knew better than criticize senior police officials, points to serious issues and calls for investigation.

As we observe personnel certification and appointments to the senior positions in Kharkiv police system we have to make a rueful conclusion that it goes not the way you declared. Our petitions concerning specific cases or individuals were set aside and appear to have gone unnoticed by you.

We want to point out that such hasty decision concerning M. Prytula negates the initiatives proclaimed by the President Yushchenko about real fight against corruption and organized crime, and will serve as a signal for the staff of your ministry “not to wash dirty linen in public” and “to uphold the dignity of the office”.

Evgen Zakharov, co-chairman of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group
Olena Shostko, PhD, member of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group