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No probe into company linked with Biden’s son — Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau

Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukraine's Burisma in 2014

Hunter Biden AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File

Hunter Biden

© AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File

KIEV, September 27. /TASS/. Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau is not probing into the activities of Burisma holding company linked with former US Vice-President Josef Biden’s son Hunter, the Bureau said on Friday.

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"Changes on the Burisma Limited board, which are now in focus of attention of the international community, took place only in May 2014, so, they have never been and are not a subject of investigation of the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau," it stated on its Facebook account.

The Bureau pointed out though that it was investigating a criminal case over "illegal actions of the ecology ministry’s officials under President [of Ukraine Viktor] Yanukovich who issued a special permit for the use of mineral resources to a number of companies founded by Burisma Limited, whose true beneficiary owner was the minister of ecology." These developments, however, took place before 2014 and "cover a period from 2010 to 2012," the Bureau said, adding that it is not tasked to investigate the activities of the company’s board members beyond this period.

Reasons behind the interest in Burisma’s activities

Hunter Biden joined Burisma’s board in 2014 and his father, Josef Biden, when occupying the office of US Vice President in 2016, called for the resignation of the then Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, who had launched a probe into the company’s activity.

The holding company specializes in prospecting, producing and marketing hydrocarbons. It also offers after-sale services. The group’s beneficiary is Nikolai Zlochevsky who fled Ukraine in late 2014 after being charged with unlawful enrichment. Ukraine's Interior Ministry removed his name from the wanted list in the autumn of 2016 at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office and he returned to the country in February 2018.

US President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudolf Giuliani insists on a probe linked with Josef Biden and his son, claiming that being US Vice President, Josef Biden could have exerted pressure on Kiev to stop investigation of the company linked with his son.

Trump’s opponents claimed that the US leader sought to exert pressure on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to launch an investigation of Hunter Biden, whose father is now Trump’s most probable rival at the upcoming presidential elections next year.

On Wednesday, the White House released a transcript of July’s conversation between the two leaders. It turned out that Trump by no means urged Zelensky to order an investigation into Hunter Biden in exchange for Washington’s financial and military assistance to Kiev.

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