The court in Austria refused to extradite the ex-head of the National Bank of Ukraine Kyryl Shevchenko to Ukraine, where he is suspected of being involved in the loss of over 200 million hryvnias at Ukrgasbank. He previously applied for asylum in this European country, claiming that the case against him was of a political nature.
According to Shevchenko, the Ukrainian authorities are persecuting him because of his "unwavering struggle" as head of the National Bank, since he refused to issue hryvnias and lower the discount rate in the first year of the full-scale Russian invasion.
In a commentary for Der Standard, Shevchenko noted that if he returns to Ukraine, he has no hope of a fair trial, recalling that all of his defense requests – more than 50 applications – have been rejected by the court.
"Kyrylo Shevchenko is counting on the justice of the Austrian authorities, taking into account the obvious violations of his rights to a fair trial and the report of the non-governmental organization 'Kharkiv human rights group', which published evidence of political persecution in his case," the publication adds.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspected Kyryl Shevchenko of embezzling Ukrgasbank's funds. We will remind that he left Ukraine when he was the head of the National Bank. According to the report, at the end of October 2022, NABU announced a wanted list of three officials of JSC "Ukrgasbank", among whom was Shevchenko. According to the investigation, in his previous status as the first deputy and then the chairman of the board of Ukrgasbank, he had information about banking service contracts concluded with large clients and used it to embezzle money. The law enforcement officers claim that for this purpose, bank employees ensured the conclusion of fictitious contracts with individuals and legal entities, who allegedly were "agents" of the bank and attracted large clients to it. For such "agency services", the bank illegally paid monthly "remuneration" to these people.
