Having lost all possible court instances, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine is no longer able to provide data on the number of firearms awarded by Minister Arsen Avakov to servicemen and civilians, as the records of such awards are no longer kept.
This is stated in the response of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the information request of journalists.
“The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine does not provide for keeping records of persons awarded, including in various categories, not only with “Firearms”, but also with any other awards,” – the response states.
Response of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the request
At the same time, the Director of the Department of Personnel, Organization of Educational and Scientific Activities still reported that in 2016, 392 orders on awarding with firearms were issued, but refused to name the figures for 2017.
We remind that back in 2015, at the request of the Ukrainian Association of Gun Owners, the Ministry already provided a response that keeping records of persons awarded with the award of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine “Firearms” is not provided.
Response of the First Deputy Director of the Department M.I. Gromyk
Earlier, the statistics on the awarding of pistols, assault rifles and machine guns, which, it turns out, was kept by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was published in the social network Facebook by Arsen Avakov himself. According to him, in 2014-2016 he personally handed over 1,322 “guns”, only about 100 of which went to civilians.
According to journalists, the rate of distribution of weapons by the Minister was 32 “guns” per month.
However, Avakov’s data does not coincide with the media, which managed to get some information from his “award lists”. Only about 15% of the identified awardees were military personnel, the rest were civilians from business, politics or simply from Avakov’s entourage.
In the case of MP from the “People’s Front” Serhiy Pashynsky, it turned out that he shot at Vyacheslav Khimikus with a weapon presented to him by the Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov.
In order to distribute reward weapons to civilians, Avakov even crossed out the norms of the law, which is basic for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, from the normative documents of the Ministry.
At the same time, the Ministry of Internal Affairs for a long time refuses to provide lists of awardees, even after they lost the courts of all instances, which recognized the information about the awards as public. During 2015-2017, journalists have been trying to get the list of persons awarded with personalized weapons in 2014-2016 published in court. They won the courts of first, appellate and higher instances, but the Ministry of Internal Affairs did not comply with the court decision properly.
It should be noted that the award weapons are state property. Refusal to provide information on the disposal of state property (who is its ultimate beneficiary) is a gross violation of the Law “On Access to Public Information”.
The court also ordered the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine to register criminal proceedings on the facts of Avakov’s issuance of award weapons.