Resumed unlawfully: Court rules in case of Pysaruk and Bakhmatyuk (Document)

By its judgment, the court ordered that the prosecutor general cancel Kasko's decision. The court upheld the lawyer's complaint about the inaction of the prosecutor general and found it unlawful to consider the request to repeal Vitaliy Kasko's decision, which was made unlawfully. This is a decision on resuming a criminal case into VAB Bank refinancing, which had already been investigated and shut down by a court judgment over the lack of corpus delicti. In pursuance of a court judgment, the prosecutor general shall cancel the controversial rulіng. The decision is final and not subject to appeal.

Former owner of VAB Bank Oleg Bakhmatyuk made a statement regarding the decision of the Pechersk court, where he said former Deputy Prosecutor General Kasko had signed the illegal decision to institute criminal proceedings against him and his company by direct order of former Head of the president's Office Andriy Bohdan. "We have repeatedly stated that Kasko made that decision in violation of norms and principles of law. This was also confirmed by the conclusions of a number of leading experts. In the end, the court finally put an end to this lawlessness, the court decision is final and cannot be appealed. Kasko's unlawful decision testified to an obvious political motivation, namely, persecution of me personally and of my company by a group of persons who exploit power in their own interests, rather than in those of the state. Kasko made the decision in conspiracy with former Head of the president's Office Bohdan and Director of the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine Artem Sytnyk, who acted out of personal revenge. This unlawful decision by Kasko has taken hostage a large company that's important for the country's economy, providing decent jobs to 27,000 Ukrainians, having paid UAH 7.7 billion (US$289.4 million) in taxes over the past three years, creating 1% of our country's GDP," Bakhmatyuk said.

As reported earlier, the case targeting Pysaruk and Bakhmatyuk was opened due to the alleged misuse of refinancing funds provided by the NBU to VAB Bank during the 2014 banking crisis. The conclusions of the examinations of the Deposit Guarantee Fund and NBU statements confirm that all refinancing funds were spent intended for their purpose - they were received by bank depositors. In addition, Oleg Bakhmatyuk himself proposed to the state to return UAH 8 billion (US$300.7 million) debts to the budget, but did not receive a response to his proposal from the NBU