The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) has drafted requests to extradite two suspects in the Midas corruption case from Israel, Oleksandr Abakumov, the detective in charge of the case, said late on March 30, The Kyiv Independent reports.
The draft requests for Timur Mindich, a close associate of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and businessman Oleksandr Tsukerman were sent for approval to Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko two weeks ago, Ababumov said in an interview with blogger Olena Tribushna. The Prosecutor General's Office did not respond to a request for comment.
The Midas operation, which was launched last year, is the biggest corruption investigation during Zelenskyy's presidency and targets graft at state nuclear power monopoly Energoatom and in the defense industry.
Nine suspects have been charged in the case. Apart from Mindich and Tsukerman, these include ex-Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov and former Energy and Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko.
Zelenskyy's ex-Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak and Rustem Umerov, former defense minister and current secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, are also under investigation in the case but have not been charged yet.
The prosecutor general has not yet approved the extradition requests for Mindich and Tsukerman, according to Abakumov.
“We have submitted it to the Prosecutor General’s Office," he said. "It seems to me that the prosecutor general should sign this extradition request as soon as possible. However, there may indeed be procedures for reviewing the justification directly within the Prosecutor General’s Office.”
Abakumov admitted that Israel extradites its citizens very seldom but added that there have been cases when Israel extradited its citizens to Ukraine.
“Israel is a very difficult country for extradition," he said. "In order to extradite a person, you essentially have to hand over all the materials of the criminal case.”
Mindich, an Israeli citizen, fled to Israel shortly before he was charged in November. He was interviewed by Ukrainska Pravda in Israel in December. Tsukerman has also fled Ukraine.
In February the media outlet Ukrainska Pravda reported that Yermak's lawyer Ihor Fomin and Yevhen Korniychuk, Ukraine's ambassador to Israel and Yermak's former partner at a law firm, had flown to Israel together in January.
Korniychuk drove Fomin in a Ukrainian embassy car to Herzliya, a suburb of Tel Aviv where Mindich lives, according to photographs published by Ukrainska Pravda. Fomin met Israeli lawyer Boris Lemper, who allegedly provides legal services to Mindich, according to footage published by Ukrainska Pravda.
Fomin intended to persuade Mindich not to testify against Yermak in exchange for protection, Ukrainska Pravda's sources said.
