(Bloomberg) -- Viktor Pshonka, a former top Ukrainian prosecutor who fled to Russia after the fall of his nation’s Kremlin-backed regime, won a European Union court fight over his inclusion on the bloc’s war sanctions list.

The EU’s General Court said Wednesday it annulled decisions to target Pshonka and his son, Artem, citing errors of assessment and doubts that they were based on a sufficiently “solid factual basis.”

Pshonka and his son were first slapped with EU sanctions in 2014 as people subject to criminal prosecution in Ukraine for alleged “embezzlement of Ukrainian state funds and their illegal transfer outside Ukraine.” 

Pshonka’s portrait in a golden frame, in which he was depicted as a Roman Caesar, became an emblem of Russia-backed former Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych’s era of corruption. His son was a lawmaker in Yanukovych’s party and is also accused of embezzlement.

In its decision, the EU court said it wasn’t clear that the EU had satisfied itself that the Ukrainian judicial administration respected rights of defense in the local criminal proceedings.

Pshonka had served as Ukraine’s Prosecutor General under Yanukovych, who was toppled in deadly street protests in February of 2014. Yanukovych, Pshonka and his son and other allies fled the country for Russia and are on the wanted list in Ukraine.

The EU has sanctioned almost 1,800 people and entities since Russia’s attacks on Ukraine, starting with its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and followed by its invasion of the country in February last year. 

EU court appeals over sanctions can last years and seldom result in an enduring victory — since the EU’s Council, which brings together government ministers, often readopts its decisions after court losses. 

Pshonka was accused of corruption, abuse of office, embezzlement and after he fled Ukraine, activists entered his house near capital Kyiv full of luxury goods as well as icons and vases. Some of them were transferred to Ukraine’s national museum. 

Yanukovych and his son remain on the EU’s sanctions list since 2014, even after winning several appeals.

The cases are: T-243/22, T-244/22, Pshonka v. Council.

 

--With assistance from Daryna Krasnolutska.

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.