Kiev Court Decided To Arrest Ex-Minister Of Defense Of Ukraine Hiding In Belarus

A criminal case over abuse of power and official position has been opened against Yezhel.

The Solomenskiy District Court of Kiev allowed the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine to detain the former Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Mikhail Yezhel, who received refugee status in Belarus after working here as the Ambassador of Ukraine, and take him to court to be dealt with according to law in a criminal case over abuse of authority and official position, Radio Svaboda reports.

According to the court decision, Mikhail Yezhel is to be detained at the first attempt to cross the border of Ukraine.

Earlier, the court allowed to use the procedure of a special pre-trial investigation (in absentia) in relation to the former minister. Now, as it follows from the court decision, the investigation is over, and an indictment based on its results has been sent to the court.

Mikhail Yezhel in Ukraine is accused of unlawful use of nearly 43 million hryvnias from the state budget for paying private companies for feeding the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At that time, it was about 5.5 million dollars.

Journalists asked Mikhail Ezhel to respond to these accusations, but he didn’t make comments, saying that he considered them “political persecution.”

The last time Mikhail Yezhel came to Ukraine was in August 2014 and did not admit his guilt during the interrogation. At the same time, it is not known whether the Ukrainian authorities asked Belarus to extradite the former official.

Mikhail Yezhel served as head of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine from March 2010 to February 2012. In April 2013, the then President of Ukraine, Yanukovych, appointed Yezhel Ambassador to Belarus.

In August 2014, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Vitaly Yarema announced that several criminal cases had been initiated against Yezhel.

At the end of April 2015, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko recalled Ezhel from Minsk, and he was dismissed from his post in May.

In April 2016, Mikhail Yezhel asked the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine to close the criminal case against him due to a lack of evidence, and in July it became known that he received refugee status in Belarus and lives in Minsk.