NABU, SAPO, might be pressured, cases could be 'stripped'
The Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) Semen Kryvonos admits a negative scenario of events could develop: further pressure on him and the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO), including conducting investigative actions and opening cases.
"We expect further developments, including calculating negative scenarios - putting pressure directly on me and the head of the SAPO, possibly conducting investigative actions, closing, some cases - we admit that all these things can happen," the NABU director said at a briefing on Tuesday.
"The information about the planned attack was quite a long time ago. We knew that something was going to happen. There was information in part that there could be legislative initiatives, there was information that there could be such things as searches, procedural actions, filing suspicions," he added.
According to the NABU director, these signs were known and international partners were informed.
"The fact that this happened during the trip to London - well, perhaps, we assume that the absence of two leaders triggered, one might say, this process. It would be possible to use our business trip in order not to communicate too quickly with journalists," he said, noting that this is just an assumption.
"We really need to distinguish between the issues of counterintelligence activities and exposing traitors... And the other component is when such things ... are used as pressure on anti-corruption institutions, then this is a huge issue," Kryvonos said.
According to him, this situation is the consequences of the work of anti-corruption bodies.
"We are exclusively investigating high-ranking corruption. I believe that, including the fact that a number of people's deputies, who, having an obvious conflict of interest, happily voted for this bill, yes, this is a matter of pressure on NABU and SAPO, and a consequence of our activities," he said.