Former SAPO prosecutor accused its leadership of “dropping” cases and causing tens of millions of euros in damage

The leadership of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), like that of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), is allegedly “leaking” information about the progress of investigations and upcoming searches to those involved in criminal cases.

Furthermore, the prosecution office is said to have a widespread practice of firing unwanted employees, nepotism, solving political issues involving millions of dollars, and unlawfully closing cases.

This was reported by the former SAPO prosecutor, Stanislav Bronevitsky.

Bronevitsky mentions a case involving the illegal takeover of Odessa Airport, which led to the loss of billions of hryvnias from the state budget. He claims that due to interference from SAP leadership, the suspects in the case were freed from responsibility, even though the case concerned the seizure of property worth 2.5 billion UAH (51.8 million euros).

“After a deal with the investigation, control over Odessa Airport remained with the suspects. In order to create problems for the detective working on this case, they offered $3 million, and another $3 million was offered for similar actions against me,” said the former prosecutor.

He added that the head of SAPO, Klimenko, knew about these offers. Eventually, both the prosecutor and the NABU detective were dismissed.

Bronevitsky also noted that the practice of leaking information to suspects is common in both SAPO and NABU. He recounted an incident in 2022, during the height of the war, when the leadership inquired about the timing of searches in a case concerning food supplies to frontline areas.

“Every day, we were asked: when will the searches be?” he said.

According to him, when the detectives carried out the search, they found correspondence from the suspects mentioning “guests,” hinting at the forthcoming law enforcement actions.

He also mentioned that in some cases, materials from the cases were handed over to the suspects. For instance, after a meeting at SAPO, two suspects immediately re-registered their property under different names, even though a seizure of the property was planned.

Bronevitsky further noted that the competitions for positions in SAPO might be rigged.

“When Klimenko arrived, four of his close associates from NABU became prosecutors in SAPO. It’s a strange coincidence that three of them were previously subordinates of Klimenko at NABU,” said the former prosecutor.

Additionally, Bronevitsky expressed dissatisfaction with how SAPO leadership treated prosecutors who went to the frontlines.

“Ten SAPO prosecutors took up arms in February 2022. Some of them were wounded. It would have been logical to show interest and support these people, but this did not happen. They feel abandoned,” he added.

It is worth noting that the leadership of NABU and SAPO had previously been criticized for leaking investigation materials, which led to the termination of cases involving billions of hryvnias and allowed suspects to avoid punishment.