Another witness testifies in Yury Lutsenko’s favour

A second witness in the trial of the former Minister of Internal Affairs, Yury Lutsenko, has confirmed that the employment of Lutsenko’s driver Leonid Prystupliuk by the central apparatus of the MIA was lawful.

Yury Koshyts who in 2005 worked in the employment selection of the relevant MIA department was answering questions from the prosecution on Monday.

“”There was no ban making it impossible to employ 49-year-old [Prystupliuk] in law, there were no instructions… The documents authorizing Prystuliuk’s work in the Department for Investigative Operations had been checked”.

He said that he had personally noted in the conclusion on employing Prystupliuk that he deserved to be appointed to the post of senior operations officer, and asserted that there had been all grounds for recommending him.

Asked about the rank involved in such a person, he said that it was the rank of major.

Both witnesses questioned on Monday denied that during interrogation they had spoken of a “staffing purge”.  The first witness, Serhiy Shumylo said that at the time a lot of people had been resigning due to the entry into force of amendments to pension legislation for police staff.

Mr Koshyts said in this connection that any minister appointed to the post chooses members of his team whom he trusts.