KYIV: Police have arrested a senior Ukrainian defense ministry official suspected of embezzling 36 million euros for the purchase of much-needed artillery shells in the war against Russia, officials said Friday.
Prosecutors said the official, whose identity they did not reveal, had developed a system under which he bought artillery shells at inflated prices.
“The director of one of the main defense ministry services has been placed in detention,” said the prosecutors’ statement.
Searches carried out at the suspect’s home had turned up documents confirming the scheme, it added.
Ukraine has had to deal with a series of corruption scandals in recent months, including several others within the defense ministry.
Investigators are already looking at the supply of sub-standard bulletproof vests and the purchase of food supplies and uniforms at inflated prices.
At the beginning of August, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky sacked all the officials in charge of military recruitment across the regions to end a system in which some people were being allowed to escape conscription.
The fight against corruption is one of the conditions that the European Union set as a condition for it to examine Ukraine’s application for membership.
European Union leaders agreed last week to open formal membership negotiations with Ukraine.
The country has received tens of billions of euros in aid from the West since the start of the war.
Top Ukraine defense official held over multi-million fraud
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Top Ukraine defense official held over multi-million fraud
- Prosecutors said the official had developed a system under which he bought artillery shells at inflated prices
- “The director of one of the main defense ministry services has been placed in detention,” said the prosecutors’ statement
Blair pressured UK officials over case against soldiers implicated in death of Iraqi
- Newly released files suggest ex-PM took steps to ensure cases were not heard in civilian court
- Baha Mousa died in British custody in 2003 after numerous assaults by soldiers over 36 hours
LONDON: Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair pressured officials not to let British soldiers be tried in civil courts on charges related to the death of an Iraqi man in 2003, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.
Baha Mousa died in British Army custody in Basra during the Iraq War, having been repeatedly assaulted by soldiers over a 36-hour period.
Newly released files show that in 2005 Antony Phillipson, Blair’s private secretary for foreign affairs, had written to the prime minister saying the soldiers involved would be court-martialed, but “if the (attorney general) felt that the case were better dealt with in a civil court he could direct accordingly.”
The memo sent to Blair was included in a series of files released to the National Archives in London this week. At the top of the memo, he wrote: “It must not (happen)!”
In other released files, Phillipson told Blair that the attorney general and Ministry of Defence could give details on changes to the law they were proposing at the time so as to avoid claims that British soldiers could not operate in a war zone for fear of prosecution.
In response, Blair said: “We have, in effect, to be in a position where (the) ICC (International Criminal Court) is not involved and neither is CPS (Crown Prosecution Service). That is essential. This has been woefully handled by the MoD.”
In 2005, Cpl Donald Payne was court-martialed, jailed for a year and dismissed from the army for his role in mistreating prisoners in custody, one of whom had been Mousa.
Payne repeatedly assaulted, restrained and hooded detainees, including as part of what he called “the choir,” a process by which he would kick and punch prisoners at intervals so that they made noise he called “music.”
He became the first British soldier convicted of war crimes, admitting to inhumanely treating civilians in violation of the 2001 International Criminal Court Act.
