Austrian courts have rejected a request by the Ukrainian authorities to extradite Kyrylo Shevchenko, the former head of the NBU, who was put on the wanted list by the NABU in late October 2022.
This was reported by Ukrainian News with reference to the Austrian publication Der Standard.
Shevchenko himself calls it "classic political persecution." He cites his intransigence as head of the National Bank and the authorities' revenge for his refusal to issue hryvnia and cut the interest rate in the first year of the war as the main reasons.
Der Standard writes that when it was necessary to replenish the state budget after the outbreak of the war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's administration put pressure on him to lower the key interest rate and issue hryvnia. Shevchenko refused so as not to further fuel rampant inflation and contribute to the further devaluation of the weakening Ukrainian currency.
It was Shevchenko's decisions in monetary policy as head of the National Bank that could have kept the financial system of the country at war and allowed inflation to remain at 5% per annum a year after his resignation.
The publication emphasizes that before Shevchenko took over as head of the National Bank, he underwent a full vetting process. However, when the opponents needed to get rid of him, they "dug up the old case and resumed it" despite the fact that the investigation into the case was officially closed due to the lack of corpus delicti. Shevchenko considers the charges to be fabricated. The journalists note that the composition of the prosecutors' team in the case was changed a week before the suspicion was served.
The former NBU head is sure that if he returns to Ukraine, he should not hope for a fair trial, given that all motions for his defense as more than 50 requests have been rejected by the court. Basic rights such as requests to be interrogated or to participate in court hearings online were violated. Kyrylo Shevchenko is counting on the position of the Austrian authorities in view of the violation of his rights to a fair trial and the report of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, a non-governmental organization that has published evidence of political persecution in his case.
The NABU refused to comment to the Austrian media: "Der Standard has not received a response from the Ukrainian anti-corruption agency," says the publication.