The Regional Police Department started a criminal investigation on an article telling about its state purchases

On December 26, the ratel.kz news website published an article by Olga Voronko “21-year-old millionaire supplies the police with arms”. The article told about the special order state purhase of protective ammunition (body armor, helmets, batons, shock shields and shields) in the amount of 523 million tenge for the Pavlodar regional police department.

The journalist found out that the police department first posted an announcement about public purchase on the website goszakup.kz, announced a tender and admitted 12 potential participants. However, for some unknown reason, the tender was canceled, and the police department purhased the required equipment from one source. The supplier was SECURITY FACTORY LLP, that was officially registered just one month before the tender announcement was published. The founder of the company is a 21-year-old man that graduated of one of the Pavlodar colleges as a "slinger".

The other potential suppliers, including companies having serious experience and appropriate permission for the supply of such equipment, applied to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the Prosecutor General, the Anti-Corruption Agency, the Accounts Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Internal State Audit Committee of the Ministry of Finance, accusing the organizers o the public purchase in bad faith. The businessmen also voiced their claims to Olga Voronko.

On December 29, the investigator of the Investigation Department of the Police Department called the journalist and said that a criminal investigation  on the disclosure of information about the state purchase was initiated and she  was a witness. The investigator asked for the documents the article was based on. On the same day, Pavlodar journalists publicly (through their Facebook account) asked the press service to clarify the situation with Olga Voronko and inform her about the status of the information she disclosed (official, secret, state secrets) and to name the article of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan the criminal investigation was based on. However, the press service of the Pavlodar region police department has not yet commented on this situation.

According to Olga Voronko's Facebook post, she learned from unofficial sources that a criminal case was initiated under Article 147, Part 5 “Dissemination of information about the private life of a person constituting his (her) personal or family secret without his (her) consent or causing significant harm to the rights and legitimate interests of a person as a result of illegal collection and (or) processing of other personal data  in a public speech, publicly demonstrated work, in mass media or with the use of telecommunications networks (shall be punished by deprivation of liberty for a term of up to seven years).

The case was initiated  by claim of the 21-year-old owner of SECURITY FACTORY LLP.

Commentary of "Adil Soz":

Neither the accusation of disclosing information about the public purchase, the investigator told the journalist about,  nor the accusation of disclosing the secrets of his private life, that Olga Voronko learned rom a source, are inapplicable to the article she published.

The fact that  the Pavlodar Police Department posted an announcement about public purchase of the equipment by means of a tender on the website goszakup.kz  and the information that there were 12 tender participants prove that the information does not constitute state secrets and does not contain official information of limited distribution.

Private life is  physical and spiritual sphere of a person, that includes the family and everyday life of the individual, his/her communication circle, attitude to religion, off-duty activities, hobbies and other areas of relations that the person himself does not want to make public. The notion of the private life inludes  family secrets such as secret of adoption, the private life of spouses, personal property and non-property relations  in the family, and other information.

An individual's participation in public purchase can in no way be attributed to the private life of a person, his family and personal life. Thus, the journalist's article does not disclose information about personal data.

The article was published  in accordance with the  President Tokayev's line to root out corruption and make society and the media to take active part  in fight against it.