The Prosecutor's Office has opened a criminal investigation to check the statement of Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, regarding the use of orphans by Kyiv officials to illegally travel abroad.
This was reported by the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office.
"Under the procedural guidance of the juvenile prosecutors of the Desnyanskyy District Prosecutor's Office of Kyiv, criminal proceedings were initiated on the facts presented by the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights about the illegal departure of persons abroad in March 2022 under the pretext of accompanying orphans during the evacuation to Germany," the statement said.
In particular, they will check the information disseminated by the Ombudsman's Office that officials of the Kyiv City Service for Children and Families and the Kyiv City Centre for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation of Children No. 1 organised the departure of several people, including their relatives, abroad under the guise of employees of institutions accompanying children during evacuation abroad.
The investigation will also check the information that none of the accompanying persons returned to Ukraine after being abroad.
"The pre-trial investigation is being conducted on the grounds of Part 2 of Article 332 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - illegal trafficking of persons of military age across the state border by a group of persons by prior conspiracy," the prosecutor's office added.
As part of the investigation, all the facts stated in the statement will be given a legal assessment.
What happened before
According to Lubinets, during monitoring visits, employees of the Ombudsman's Office accidentally discovered that officials of the Kyiv Service for Children and Families and the Centre for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation of Children No. 1 had sent their close relatives to accompany children abroad.
In March 2022, when active hostilities were taking place near Kyiv, 68 pupils of the Centre for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation of Children No. 1, accompanied by 20 people, were evacuated to the former youth camp in Wuppertal, Germany.
However, according to Lubinets, the official orders for the evacuation included people who were not related to this field and had only become employees of the institutions the day before, and some had never been employed at all.