09 September 2020, Wednesday, 18:10 248

MONITORING: Cyprus To Investigate Legality Of Granting Of Citizenship To Kolomoiskyi, Boholiubov, Hryhoryshyn, Haiduk, Zlochevskyi And Bakhmatiuk

Таня Герасимова

The government of Cyprus intends to investigate the legality of the Cypriot citizenships that have been granted since 2002 under a program for attracting investments in the country's economy, including the Cypriot citizenships of Ukrainian businessmen Ihor Kolomoiskyi, Hennadii Boholiubov, Vitalii Haiduk, Mykola Zlochevskyi, Oleh Bakhmatiuk, and Mykhailo Kiperman, as well as Russian businessman Konstantin Grigorishin, who owns assets in Ukraine.

This is stated in statements by the government of Cyprus and reports by the Politis publication (Cyprus) and the Al Jazeera television holding (Qatar).

"The Council of Ministers has decided to set up an independent investigative committee to establish all naturalization cases from the period of the Cyprus Investment Program until 2020," the Cypriot government said in a statement.

The government of Cyprus made this decision after Al Jazeera published documents claiming that the Cypriot authorities were issuing passports to politically significant persons with a high risk of corruption and businessmen involved in criminal cases.

The channel also named a number of Ukrainian citizens who were granted Cypriot citizenship under this program. They include businessman Oleh Bakhmatiuk, former minister of ecology and businessman Mykola Zlochevskyi, former president Viktor Yanukovych-era defense minister Pavlo Lebedev’s wife Liudmyla Lebedeva, businessman Vadym Shulman, and former head of the Tax Police’s investigative department Anatolii Yakovynets.

Politis later published a list of 34 people classified as "high risk" by the Cypriot authorities.

According to the Cypriot publication, the list includes Kolomoiskyi, Boholiubov (both granted citizenship in 2010), Grigorishin (2011), Haiduk (2014), and Kiperman (2013).

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, Kolomoiskyi said that he was a citizen of three countries (Ukraine, Israel, and Cyprus) in 2014, when he was the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region.

The Constitution of Ukraine stipulates that a citizen of Ukraine cannot be a citizen of another country.