The head of the board of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, military serviceman Vitaliy Shabunin, stated that the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) «deceived journalists» by reporting that the gadgets seized during a search were returned to him.
About this, he wrote on his Facebook page.
«The SBI deceived journalists once again: this time by claiming that they returned the seized gadgets to me (which made headlines). This is an outright lie. The SBI did not return either my phone or my laptop (they returned the gadgets of my relatives)», — Shabunin wrote.
In his opinion, the SBI deliberately released a statement during ongoing procedural actions when he was unable to promptly refute this information.
He also denied the information from the SBI on their official website about allegedly serving him with a notice of suspicion regarding the use of a volunteer vehicle. According to his words, the text of the suspicion itself did not mention this.
Meanwhile, in a comment to «Ukrainska Pravda», the SBI responded that their statement from August 14 indicated that electronic devices «seized during the search at his place of residence» were allegedly returned to Shabunin, so it was supposedly not about «all gadgets,» and investigative actions in the case were conducted at several locations.
In response, Vitaliy Shabunin published a document listing the returned items. According to it, the head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center was returned a Garmin watch and an old button phone TEKHO, seized at his place of service in the Kharkiv region, and not at his registered address in the Kyiv region.