Translated by Ollie Richardson and Angelina Siard

01:27:31
13/11/2016

itc.ua

As is already known, on 11.11.16, the SBU searched the offices of “Intertelecom” on suspicion of the transfer of equipment to providers in Crimea. Currently, the operator issued an official statement in which they accuse the representatives of law enforcement agencies of being in flagrant violation of criminal procedure and wrongful investigative actions in the form of searching and confiscating key station telecommunications equipment. Below is the full text of the statement.

“With this statement, the administration of OOO “Intertelecom” informs all bodies of state power of Ukraine, subscribers, business entities —business partners, and the public of Ukraine that today, 11.11.2016, employees of the Kiev regional departments of the Security Service of Ukraine, accompanied by fighters of the “alpha” division and in the presence of their pre-prepared witnesses, with gross violation of the norms of the criminal process, held a groundless unlawful investigative action by searching and seizing key telecommunications equipment, violating the integrity and operability of the telecommunication network, LLC “Intertelecom”.

Investigative actions were carried out with gross violations of the right to a defence and the use of video recording devices at the request of participants of the investigative action — the employees of LLC “Intertelecom”, which speaks volumes about the perception by law enforcement officials towards the illegality of their actions.

Before the beginning of actions aimed at the destruction of the integrity and efficiency of the telecommunication network, LLC “Intertelecom”, employees of the SBU were given full cooperation by the specialists of the operator in carrying out the investigation and to achieve the objectives set out in the decision of the court. None of the suspicions and assumptions set forth in the court’s decision in the investigation did not find any confirmation.

Before the investigative actions, employees of the SBU were informed by the technical staff of the Operator that to achieve the goal formulated by a hastily constructed court decision, there is no need to destroy the performance of the network Operator and this can be achieved by other means, which was confirmed by technical experts brought by employees of the SBU themselves.

Special attention should be given to the court’s decision on the basis of which the investigation was conducted was based on unsubstantiated and incompetent supposition by one of the specialists of the telecommunications industry and one of the employees of the SBU, which was completely disproved during the investigation. However, even this did not stop the Security Services.

Despite advance warnings on the possibility to fully carry out the investigative action without destroying the working condition of the telecommunications network Operator, which was confirmed by technical experts brought by employees of the SBU, the police deliberately destroyed the integrity and the efficiency of the Operator’s telecommunications network.

These actions of the SBU clearly confirm that in reality they did not have any other aim than to pressure the LLC “Intertelecom” and wilfully cause enormous harm to the Operator.

Probably aware of the illegality of their actions, the SBU hurried to spread in the media and on the Internet false information about the alleged suppression of illegal activities of “one of” the operators for the organization of communication between Crimea and Ukraine and cooperation with the Secret Services of the Russian Federation, which has no basis in the case of our enterprise.

With this message, OOO “Intertelecom” addresses all public authorities of Ukraine with an appeal, based on the principles of publicity and the rule of law in Ukraine, to take all legal steps to restore violated rights and legal interests of OOO “Intertelecom”, to recover completely the disrupted functioning of the company and violations of the rule of law, and to prevent the dominance of the tyranny of the Security Services, carried out on false pretexts.

At the moment, the deliberate actions of the SBU – seizing the company Intertelecom technical equipment and servers – has led to the disabling of the data transmission network of subscribers throughout Ukraine. To date, more than a million in Ukraine have been left without a connection.

Due to the powering down of the main systems, the degradation of the system may lead to the disconnection of voice subscribers on the entire territory of Ukraine.”

Center of Freedom of Speech in Ukraine
“The SBU used analogous methods of destruction of business during the arrest of journalist and human rights activist Dmitry Vasilets, because with profits generated from his business in the field of Internet providing, Dmitry Vasilets paid for his independent journalistic and public projects such as “Media-Lustration”, “What the media is silent about” and others. The purpose of the SBU in the case of Dmitry Vasilets was the suppression of his independent journalistic activities and, in the case of Intertelecom, we believe, banal organized-raiding organised by competitors. We see how the SBU has turned into an organized criminal group, which under the guise of “combating alleged terrorists” carries out orders of the regime.”

Copyright © 2022. All Rights Reserved.