Former US prosecutor Martha Boersch no longer wants to be considered a candidate for the post of the auditor of the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), according to Ukrainian MP Yehor Sobolyev's Facebook post.
"Had the appointment happened last year, I would have had time and capacity to do this job. But now my work responsibilities do not allow me to undertake such responsibility," he quoted her as saying in a letter he reportedly received from Boersch last night.
Boersch was a prosecutor in the US case against former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko. She then worked as a private lawyer and set up her own law firm.
Yesterday, the parliamentary committee for corruption prevention asked speaker Andriy Parubiy to put to vote three nominations for NABU auditor offered last year: Lawyer Academy Prof Serhiy Honcharenko, former US prosecutor Martha Boersch and former Spanish prosecutor Carlos Castresana.
Later on 8 February, the Ukrayinska Pravda news website quoted its sources as saying that fugitive Ukrainian MP and businessman Oleksandr Onishchenko signed Martha Boersch to represent his legal interests.
Onishchenko's case was one of the first high-profile investigations by the NABU. The MP is suspected of machinations with gas extracted under joint agreements with Ukrhazdobycha. The state incurred nearly 3bn hryvnyas in losses as a result.