In the morning of June 23, after a night search in the editorial office and detention, the editor-in-chief of the Strana.ua Ihor Huzhva, contacted the journalists of the internet newspaper and told the essence of the accusations brought against him and how the provocation against the Strana.ua was being prepared.
This is reported by Strana.ua.
"Back in the middle of April, I was told that proceedings had been initiated against me for extortion from a Member of Parliament. I was surprised at this information, because there was nothing of the sort. But at the end of April, I received proposals to remove from the website several articles about Liashko for large amounts of money. I refused.
In the middle of May they came out again with a similar proposal, but they wanted to remove one particular material - about the conflict between Ilia Kiva and the Member of Parliament named Linko from the Radical Party of Liashko. The amount offered was USD 20,000. I refused again.
In addition, having put together 2+2, by that time I already realized that it was a honey-trap. Since then no one has come to me again with offers from Linko or Liashko. Until June 22, when some people introduced themselves as police officers broke into our editorial office. They read a document, which they called a "court ruling" and which, as they later admitted, was worthless (so they did not conduct a search on it).
In this "document," both Linko and USD 20,000 were mentioned. Why did they come? Apparently, tired of waiting for when I begin to "extort" something from Linko and have already decided to proceed to action (the investigation had been carried out since April - what a waste it would be to quit).
In general, the entire story is a pre-planned provocation against me and against the Strana. Like any provocation it is doomed to failure. We will break through! Stay with us," said Ihor Huzhva.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yurii Lutsenko said that the editor-in-chief of the Strana.ua internet paper Ihor Huzhva had been detained on suspicion of extortion of USD 10,000.
Huzhva considers the criminal case on charges of extortion opened against him to be fabricated.
At about 04:00 a.m. the editor-in-chief of the Strana.ua internet paper Ihor Huzhva was taken to the Main Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in Kyiv.
The journalist of the Strana.ua internet newspaper Anastasiya Tovt says there will be attempts to block the domain of strana.ua website.
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