KYIV: A senior official affiliated with Ukraine’s intelligence agency has been sacked after revelations that investigative journalists had been wiretapped, western media reported on Monday.
The development comes after several instances of pressurizing of Ukrainian investigative journalists surfaced in January. Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called on Ukrainian authorities to probe the allegations.
In one incident, staff at Bihus.info, a specialized outlet in probing corruption, found from a video that was posted on social media on January 16 that they had been subjected to surreptitious filming for months.
Another case involved a journalist Iryna Hryb, who reported on grain exports discovered a device in her car that could be used to listen to her phone calls or conversations.
The third case pertains to Yuriy Nikolov, an investigative reporter working for the anti-corruption media outlet Nashy Hroshy. On January 14, masked individuals threatened him to fight in the Ukrainian army against Russians.
On Monday, a source within Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency told media the chief of the SBU state protection department, Roman Semenchenko, was dismissed as a result of the surveillance of Bihus Info staff.
An official on condition of anonymity told media that the decision was taken by the head of the SBU and approved by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Earlier on Monday, the SBU in a statement said that it had taken appropriate personnel decisions, but tried to justify the surveillance because some Bihus Info employees were clients of drug traffickers.
