By Paul Manafort
Ukrainian prosecutors want to question former colleague of the President of the United States Donald trump — Paul Manafort in the case of corruption, reports CNN. Manafort worked as the head of the election headquarters of the tramp, until he was dismissed in August 2016.
The case is being investigated in relation to Alexander Lavrynovych, the former Minister of justice under President Viktor Yanukovych. He is accused of illegally transferred more than a million dollars new York law firm “Skadden, ARPS, slate, Meagher and Flom” that they helped to prove to foreign entities that the verdict against former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko had a sound legal basis. Tymoshenko was sentenced in 2011 to seven years in prison on charges that the conclusion of the gas agreements with Russia left Ukraine major damage. In the end, she was released after the overthrow of Yanukovych in 2014.
In 2012, Ukraine was faced with the danger of making the adverse verdict in the Tymoshenko case in the European court of human rights. In addition, the U.S. Congress considered the possibility of imposing sanctions against the Yanukovych government. It is in order to protect the position of Kiev, and was hired by an American law firm. Reportedly, this was done in the framework developed by Manafort PR strategy, therefore, it is one of the defendants in the investigations carried out by the current Ukrainian government. Manafort is not a suspect, however, Kyiv prosecutors want to extract a confession from him.
The illegality of the actions Lavrynovych, according to Kiev, was the fact that the Ministry of justice of Ukraine signed the agreement with firm “Skadden” provision of legal services equivalent to a total of 12 thousand dollars is a ceiling above which it would be necessary to hold a public competition to conclude the government contract. However, according to prosecutors, in 2013, from the account of the Ministry of justice to the account in Citibank, presumably belonging to the firm “Skadden”, spent a sum of 1 million 75 thousand dollars.
In accordance with the Treaty on mutual legal assistance, both countries agreed to regularly to help each other in the work of law enforcement. We are talking about such actions, as the reception of testimony and other evidence relevant to litigation.
Over the past two years, as stated by Kyiv prosecutors, they are seven occasions with a request for assistance to the Director of the FBI James Comey, and officials of the justice Department. Americans these requests have not responded. The American authorities, in turn, confirmed to CNN that the requests were received, but from further declined to comment.