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Ukraine prosecutor general urges MPs to waive parliamentary immunity

The official denied existence of any list of deputies potentially subject to criminal proceedings

KIEV, September 21. /TASS/. Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin on Monday called on deputies in the Verkhovna Rada to waive their parliamentary immunity.

Speaking at a news conference in Kiev, Shokin said: "If there is no law, this [problems with prosecuting parliamentarians] will repeat over and over again.

"In fact, it would be good if they [Verkhovna Rada deputies] canceled their parliamentary immunity," he said, calling for law to scrap their immunity from prosecution.

Shokin denied existence of any list of deputies potentially subject to criminal proceedings. "There is no list. No ‘Shokin list’ or any other kind of list. There is only a legislative problem," he said.

In earlier comments, Yuriy Lutsenko, leading the Ukrainian president’s Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction in parliament, claimed Shokin had a list of MPs to be brought to criminal responsibility. "There are deputies of all factions on the list," he told Ukraine public television.

Interior Ministry official Anton Gerashchenko from Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s parliamentary faction People's Front said last Friday the issue of stripping several deputies of their immunity might be considered in parliament this week.

"Not only opposition deputies but also those from the government coalition may have their immunity revoked," Gerashchenko, an aide to the country’s interior minister, said.