KIEV, May 24. /TASS/. A statement containing charges of money laundering and legalizing assets in the process of acquisition of Ukraine’s television channel Pryamoi has been registered by the State Bureau of Investigation, lawyer Andrei Portnov, who under President Viktor Yanukovich held the position of deputy chief of his staff, said on Friday.

"I have registered at the State Bureau of Investigation a third statement over money laundering, legalization of illegal incomes and tax evasion by the former president, Poroshenko, who together with an organized criminal group took over the television channel Pryamoi by registering it in the name of an offshore company fictitiously owned by a former member of the Party of Regions, Vladimir Makeyenko," Portnov said in his telegram-channel.

Also, he added the SBI registered a criminal case and launched an investigation into Poroshenko’s legalization of criminal incomes in offshore manipulations $300 million worth in a deal to sell a Poroshenko-owned shipyard in Kiev. Portnov filed a corresponding statement on Thursday.

Earlier, the SBI launched a probe on the basis of Portnov’s statement containing charges Poroshenko was responsible for high treason in connection with the Kerch Strait incident. Two days ago a special anti-corruption group opened a criminal case against the former president and a group of senior official over abuse of office. The statement says that Poroshenko coordinated distribution of key posts in the management bodies and the observer council of Ukraine’s electric power utility Tsentrenergo with the aim of embezzling the funds of this company in which the state held the controlling stake.