10/16/2002 | Andrew Gump

http://www.kpnews.com/main/10958/
25 Apr 2002
Kangaroo Court Country

[...]

Yury Vasylenko, a Kyiv appellate court judge, said the state’s handling of the case against Feldman was an example of how the courts cover up human rights abuses perpetrated by law enforcement agencies at the behest of government officials.

“I have seen few cases as botched as this one in my 32 years as a judge,” said Vasylenko, who said he hoped it was only a matter of time before politicians came to the defense of Feldman, whom Vasylenko called a victim of dysfunctional jurisprudence.

Ignorance about the case abounds, according to Feldman’s lawyer, Andry Fedur. He said U.S. officials erred when they wrote in their annual report on human rights practices that Feldman was “the manager of Yulia Tymoshenko’s business interests.”

“Tymoshenko was one of Feldman’s clients, not his boss,” Fedur said.

According to Fedur, conversations about Feldman and Sloviansky Bank allegedly recorded in February 2000 by Mykola Melnychenko, a former presidential guard in President Leonid Kuchma’s office, best explain why his client in still in jail.

In a 30‑minute conversation published by Radio Liberty last April, two men purported to be Kuchma and State Tax Administration Head Mykola Azarov discussed how to shut down Sloviansky Bank and incriminate Feldman.

Fedur said the judge presiding over Feldman’s trial refused to honor his request to call Melnychenko and Kuchma as witnesses.

Sloviansky’s problems began in December of 1999 when the STA demanded that the bank pay a fine of $16 million for alleged misconduct. Ukraine’s High Arbitration Court ruled that the charges were unfounded, but the STA opened a criminal case against Sloviansky, which had made large loans to industrial works in eastern Ukraine.

Feldman has denied all allegations of impropriety. He and his former colleagues at Sloviansky have said government officials – including President Leonid Kuchma and Azarov – orchestrated his arrest and liquidated Sloviansky Bank to achieve their own business and political aims.

[...]