Former president Petro Poroshenko proposed appointing Yurii Lutsenko to replace Viktor Shokin as Ukraine’s prosecutor general in exchange for disbursement of an International Monetary Fund loan tranche of USD 1 billion during a conversation with former United States vice president Joseph Biden.
Member of Parliament Andrii Derkach (independent) presented a tape of the conversation between Biden and Poroshenko at a press conference, the Ukrainian News Agency reports.
In particular, Biden said that the Ukrainian government should appoint a new government and a new prosecutor general instead of Viktor Shokin in order to receive a loan tranche of USD 1 billion.
In response, Poroshenko proposed Yurii Lutsenko as the new prosecutor general but added that he would not propose his candidacy to parliament if the United States opposed his appointment.
“If you think that a politically motivated person is not quite suitable for this position, then I withdraw my proposal,” he said during the conversation with Biden.
Poroshenko added that nobody knew at that time that he was going to nominate Lutsenko.
Derkach told the press conference that he obtained the tape of the conversation between Biden and Poroshenko from investigative journalists.
Derkach did not name the journalists.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the State Bureau of Investigation recently opened criminal proceedings on suspicion of interference in Shokin’s work by Biden.
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