KIEV, December 25. /TASS/. Officers of the Ukrainian state security service SBU and the Prosecutor General’s Office came to the apartment of the leader of Ukraine’s Ukrop political party, Gennady Korban, in the southeastern city Dnepropetrovsk on Thursday night waving a resolution on the man’s coercive medical checkup, his lawyer Oksana Tomchuk told 112 Ukraina TV channel.
Earlier on Thursday night, Korban’s press secretary Yevgeniya Kravchuk wrote in Facebook: "Right now the officers of the (state security service) SBU and the Prosecutor General’s Office are searching Gennady Korban’s apartment in Dnepropetrovsk. The motives are unknown. Law forbids investigative actions at nighttime."
"We already have the picture of what’s happening and the only thing I can say is that’s something surrealistic," Oksana Tomchuk said. "This has nothing to do with whatever norms of law."
"Korban was pushed into an ambulance car and we’re unaware of the destination where they’re taking him now," she said. "Most probably, it’s Kiev."
The law enforcers presented a warrant for search and a coercive medical checkup to Korban, Tomchuk said. She confirmed holding a search during nighttime ran counter to the norms of Ukraine’s Code of Practice.
"Besides, his children have been left alone at home without supervision," she said.
Korban, whom Ukrainian media call Kolomoisky’s right-hand man, was detained on October 31 on suspicions of standing behind a criminal organization, which is charged with an embezzlement of monies from a charity fund and with other criminal actions.
The Kiev court of appeals placed him under house arrest until December 31.
Korban was Igor Kolomoisky’s deputy when the latter man held the position of the Dnepropetrovsk region governor. Kolomoisky is also the founder and supervisor of the Ukrainian Union of Patriots (Ukrop) party.
Korban took part in the October 25 local elections where he ran for the post of Kiev’s mayor but he did not get to the runoff round. He is featured in the list of the Top 100 Wealthiest Ukrainians with the business in the sphere of real estate that brought him $ 25 million last year.
Experts describe the charges issued to Korban as the authorities’ attempt to curb oligarchic clans in Ukraine.