KIEV, July 9. /TASS/. The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office has initiated a criminal case against the NewsOne TV channel under the ‘terrorism financing’ article, Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko said on Tuesday.
"According to data obtained by the Security Service of Ukraine and the General Prosecutor’s Office, officials from the Cypriote offshore companies of NewsOne and one of the Russian banks supporting the Russian defense order, are the same persons. In view of this, a criminal case over financing of terrorism was registered today," he said.
On Monday, Lutsenko maintained that his agency had allegedly obtained information about the links between NewsOne and the Russian Promsvyazbank, "an authorized bank for financing and servicing the government defense order of an aggressor state". He maintained that in view of this, the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council had grounds "for imposing sanctions against the TV channel linked to terrorism".
The owner of NewsOne dubbed this statement about alleged ties with the Russian bank a cynical lie and a sign of "professional ineptitude". "I, Taras Romanovich Kozak, am the sole owner of NewsOne TV channel and own 100% of the news channel directly," he stressed.
He said these allegations had been made in order to shut down the channel for political reasons.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office has opened a high treason case over plans to hold a live link-up between a Russian and a Ukrainian television channels, Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko said on Monday.
"The Prosecutor General’s Office opened a case on charges of an attempted high treason by means of providing information support to subversive activities against Ukraine over the NewsOne television channel’s plans to organize a live link-up with a Russian channel under sanctions," he wrote on his Facebook account.
"All those behind this initiative, from the channel’s owner to the hosts who announced the TV link-up, have been summoned for questioning," he noted, adding that a motion to court is being drafted to sanction the arrest of the television channel’s assets.
On Sunday, Russian TV host Dmitry Kiselyov announced during his Vesti Nedeli (News of the Week) program on the Rossiya-1 TV channel that a TV link-up between Kiev and Moscow titled "Need to Talk" would be held on July 12 between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. The program was supposed to be hosted jointly with Ukraine’s NewsOne TV channel, which is part of a media group owned by Chairman of the Political Council of Ukraine’s Opposition Platform - For Life party Viktor Medvedchuk
Some Ukrainian parties strongly dismissed the TV link-up idea. On Monday, NewsOne cancelled the event citing threats of physical violence against its employees as a reason.