Zherdytsky Case Still Open

On October 15 the Lower Saxony State Court in Hildesheim, Germany, resumed hearings of the criminal case against Viktor Zherdytsky and Ihor Didenko, a former top executive of Naftohaz Ukrayiny. Mr. Zherdytsky, former governor of Hradobank, accused of embezzling the money intended for the victims of Nazism in Ukraine, was questioned about his activities as bank chief in 1993-1996. In those years DM 86 million to be paid to former slave laborers vanished from Hradobank accounts, Interfax-Ukraine quotes the Deutsche Welle Ukrainian service. According to German prosecutors’ information also confirmed by Ukraine, Hradobank extended loans to a firm headed by Mr. Didenko, which instead of paying the obligations transferred them to Swiss banking accounts controlled by Mr. Zherdytsky. People’s Deputy Zherdytsky said that he had been framed. “It is an organized group of high-ranking Ukrainian officials and so-called oligarchs who must be held responsible for the bankruptcy of Hradobank,” he said. Didenko, being charged with complicity in misappropriating German government funds in the mid- nineties, told the court that he was very dubious about the objectivity of the German investigation. Hanover prosecutors have indicted Zherdytsky and Didenko for misappropriating DM 4 million because the rest of the vanished amount cannot be investigated under the statute of limitations. Under the German criminal code, People’s Deputy Zherdytsky if found guilty could be sentenced to ten years, with two-thirds of the term to be served in Germany.