KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th May, 2020) Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigation said on Wednesday it had summoned former President Petro Poroshenko for interrogation on Friday in the case of wiretapping his conversation with former US Vice President Joe Biden.
Earlier, Ukrainian media reported that the bureau had opened a probe into wiretapping of the two politicians' conversation. In particular, an extract from the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations was published, which stated that illegal use of technical means of obtaining information could harm public interest.
"Poroshenko Petro Oleksiyovych is summoned to the State Bureau of Investigation at noon [9.00 GMT] May 29, 2020, for questioning as a witness in criminal proceedings on the possible illegal use of special technical means of obtaining information that could cause substantial harm to state interests," the bureau said.
Earlier, lawmaker Andrii Derkach released records of alleged phone conversations of Poroshenko and Biden, which, according to him, prove international corruption and state treason of the former president. One of the conversations concerned the dismissal of Viktor Shokin from the post of Ukraine's prosecutor general, allegedly at Biden's request. In exchange for this, Biden promised Poroshenko to allocate $1 billion to Ukraine. In addition, they discussed issues of the alleged presence of a coalition in parliament, the resignation of the government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk and the approval the government of Volodymyr Groysman. Poroshenko stated that these records had been fabricated.
Ex-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin previously wrote a statement to law enforcement agencies about Biden's interference in his work. The Ukrainian news Agency reported, citing a source in the State Bureau of Investigation, that a criminal case had been launched in Ukraine because of possible interference by a US citizen in the work of Shokin. The Ukrainian parliament voted to dismiss Shokin in 2016. The ex-prosecutor general then unsuccessfully tried to appeal his dismissal.
