The court agreed to detain the deputy chairman of the SBU

Yesterday it became known that the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv issued a sanction for the detention of the Deputy Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Tiberiy Durdinets. This decision was made within the framework of a criminal case regarding his deliberate failure to comply with a court decision, which ordered Mr. Durdinets to refrain from performing official duties. The initiator of this criminal prosecution was People's Deputy Yuri Karmazin. The SBU believes that the Prosecutor General’s Office has no grounds to take “unjustified procedural actions.”

The Pechersky District Court of Kyiv on Monday agreed to detain the deputy chairman of the SBU, the head of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime, Tiberiy Durdinets and bring him in custody to the court to consider the issue of choosing a preventive measure. This decision was made by the court due to the fact that Mr. Durdinets is allegedly “hiding from the pre-trial investigation authorities.” In another decree, the Pechersk District Court allowed searches and seizure of documents in the apartment of the deputy chairman of the SBU in Uzhgorod, as well as “other premises located at his registration address (sheds, cellars, attics).” In addition, a search of Tiberius Durdinets’ personal transport is permitted. Both decisions are not subject to appeal and were made by the court as part of a criminal investigation into the fact of deliberate failure to comply with a court decision, in which Tiberiy Durdinets is accused.

Let us recall that the decision that “during the trial of the administrative claim” Tiberiy Durdinets must refrain from performing official duties was made by the District Administrative Court (DAC) of Kyiv (see Kommersant dated February 9). This ruling was adopted by the court as part of the consideration of the claim of the first deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Justice Yuriy Karmazin ("Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense"), who demanded that the actions of Mr. Durdinets in his position be declared unlawful and that he be prohibited from carrying out any actions as an official. Mr. Karmazin explained his demands by saying that Tiberiy Durdinets illegally holds the post, since during the period of appointment he did not pass an interview with the relevant committee of the Rada, as required by the law “On organizational and legal principles of combating organized crime.”

“Today, there are no grounds to take unjustified procedural actions, since the Security Service is already assisting the prosecutor’s office in the investigation of this case. At the moment, Mr. Durdynets is on sick leave and is not evading the investigation; he is ready to meet with investigators at any time and answer all questions,” Marina Ostapenko, head of the SBU press service, said yesterday. In addition, according to her, the decision of the OAS was challenged by Mr. Durdinets, but his appeal has not yet been considered by the court. Yesterday, the SBU reported that investigators from the Prosecutor General’s Office (GPU), together with SBU officers, had already seized documents in the office of Tiberius Durdinets.

“I believe that the GPU acted correctly, but with a huge delay,” Yuri Karmazin told Kommersant. According to him, Mr. Durdinets ignored the decision of the SLA, in particular, continuing to issue sanctions for conducting operational-search actions. “This is not a joke! He (Tibery Durdinets - Kommersant) wiretapped the phones of people’s deputies, judges who were disliked by him or the presidential secretariat. He listened simultaneously to four deputy prosecutors general - Kuzmin, Golomsha, Kudryavtsev and Shinalsky!” - Mr. Karmazin was indignant.

At the same time, the lawsuit in which the ruling was made has not yet been considered: as Yuriy Karmazin told Kommersant, the chairman of the Kyiv OAS, Oleg Bachun, who considered this case, recused himself about a month ago. At the same time, it was decided that the case would be transferred to another judge, but the hearing has not yet resumed. “Then I took one of the procedural decisions signed by Durdinets and wrote a statement (to the GPU - Kommersant) about initiating a criminal case due to failure to comply with the court decision,” Mr. Karmazin told Kommersant.

It should be noted that the criminal case, within the framework of which the sanction for the detention of Tiberiy Durdinets was received, is being processed by the investigative department for the investigation of particularly important cases of the Prosecutor General's Office, whose activities are supervised by Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin. The relationship between him and the deputy head of the SBU was completely ruined as a result of the scandal related to the wiretapping of Mr. Kuzmin’s telephone conversations, which was carried out as part of a criminal investigation into the violation by the Deputy Prosecutor General of the regime for working with secret documents (see Kommersant of March 5).

At the time of signing the issue for publication, Tiberiy Durdinets was not detained. Considering that he is on sick leave, it is not yet clear when the decision of the Pechersky District Court will be implemented. However, according to lawyers interviewed by Kommersant, being on sick leave is not an obstacle to performing such procedural actions.

Elena Kommersant-Geda

Tiberiy Durdinets participates in the sanctions