The Security Service of Ukraine has turned into a repression tool, the first deputy head of the opposition Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc’s parliamentary faction, Andriy Kozhemyakin, has said, the UNIAN news agency has reported.

Commenting on the detention of the former head of the State Customs Service, Anatoliy Makarenko, Kozhemyakin said: "The fact of detention of the former head of the State Customs Service, Anatoliy Makarenko, by the Security Service of Ukraine means that it has become a tool of repression to punish those, who did not allow certain groups of con men to live off the Ukrainian state," the parliamentary faction's press service quoted Kozhemyakin as saying.

He added that "today the whole of Ukraine has seen that the head of the state body that has the duty of protecting national interests has turned the Security Service of Ukraine into a semi-criminal structure that protects the interests of the ruling oligarchic circles and clans".

Kozhemyakin said that "the political vendetta by the head of the Security Service of Ukraine against those state officials who counteracted corruption shows that (Security Service of Ukraine chief Valeriy) Khoroshkovskiy came to the Security Service only to serve the interests of the those in power and solve his personal business issues".

"The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc will not permit any illegal actions, especially political repression, against those who honestly and thoroughly fulfilled their duties as envisaged by the constitution and Ukrainian laws. We would advise Khoroshkovskiy and those whose orders he carries out to take an example from the people they are putting in jail today," Kozhemyakin said.

On June 24 Kyiv's Pecherskiy district court ordered that the former head of the Ukrainian State Customs Service, Anatoliy Makarenko, be remanded in custody for two months pending trial. The decision was made at the end of a court hearing that lasted for over three hours. Makarenko's lawyer confirmed that the Security Service of Ukraine had instituted a criminal case on negligence against the former customs chief.

According to lawyer Yevhen Solodko, the resolution on the criminal case reads that Makarenko did not check the lawfulness of the instruction from former First Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov on the customs clearance of natural gas.

Solodko said that on June 23 Makarenko was summoned to the Security Service of Ukraine as a witness in the criminal case on the illegal customs clearance of gas that belonged to the RosUkrEnergo company. After the questioning, Makarenko was asked to wait, without explaining the reasons.

Solodko said an official record was filed at the Security Service on Makarenko's detention, and a decision on his detention was made on the basis of that document.