Tape analysis yields inconclusive results (03/04/01)

Tape analysis yields inconclusive results

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - An independent analysis of audio recordings that could implicate President Leonid Kuchma in various criminal acts, including complicity in the murder of a Ukrainian journalist, has given mixed results, according to a report released on February 27. Nonetheless, its authors said that, while there is no hope for an absolutely conclusive result, indications are that - more likely than not - the tapes are real. The report underscores that it is unlikely the recordings could be used as evidence in a court of law.

The results, released on February 27, explained that the recordings are of a type that makes the probability of determining whether they were doctored or manipulated "rather slim," if any presupposed alterations to them were made "at a professional level."

However, the report - prepared by two international non-governmental human rights organizations, the Vienna-based International Press Institute and Freedom House, located in New York - also emphasized that the analysis does not mean that the audiotapes are fakes.

"It suggests only that their authenticity cannot be proved to a high degree of certainty via forensic analysis," stated the report.

It further explained that because two of the tapes are digital recordings and a third one was converted to a digital format via a computer, "a library of digital samples could have been created, then deployed to reorder the contents, or to construct fictitious elements to insert into the conversations."

Yet, the report concludes by strongly asserting that, while such a procedure could be utilized realistically to construct or tamper with a relatively small amount of tape, the effort would be nearly impossible for the 300 hours of recordings that were given over for analysis.

"If the existing evidence had consisted only of the approximately 25-minute-long recordings related to the Gongadze case, one could possibly imagine some manipulations or doctoring by a 'potential aggressor.' However, as the total volume of recordings available to the [Verkhovna Rada] Investigative Commission covers hundreds of hours of conversation over the period of three months, it seems hard to believe that such a huge amount of documentary evidence may have been doctored or manipulated," states the report.

The report supports recent admissions by President Kuchma and Procurator General Mykhailo Potebenko - which came after earlier denials - that the voices on the recordings are those of the president and other politicians, as originally had been alleged by the anti-Kuchma forces.

The anti-Kuchma forces had hoped that an indisputable assertion by an independent analyst that the voices are real and the tapes authentic would jump-start a process that quickly would lead to the removal of the president from office.

But the mixed results will allow the president and his supporters to maintain, as they have, that the tapes are doctored recordings of normal political conversations the president had with his ministers and other politicians on various subjects, including the fight against corruption.

President Kuchma and Mr. Potebenko have said the recordings are part of a conspiracy by the president's political opponents to oust him from office at all costs.

The IPI/Freedom House report, which was signed by IPI Director Prof. Johann Fritz, explained that the tapes would in all probability not pass scrutiny as evidence in a court of law because there is no proof they were maintained in compliance with international standards for documentation, preservation and availability for review.

The actual analysis was carried out by a private European forensic accounting firm that specializes in analyzing electronic evidence. The firm was hired by IPI and Freedom House for the job.

The results, announced by Serhii Holovatii, the secretary of an ad hoc parliamentary committee of the Verkhovna Rada that requested in December that the IPI have the tapes analyzed, immediately set off a series of contradictory statements by the committee's leadership.

Mr. Holovatii asserted that the report conclusively states the tapes are authentic, but uses the convoluted language of scientific research and logic, which makes it difficult to understand the results.

"This does not mean that the tapes are not authentic; it only means that a high level of authenticity cannot be established," said Mr. Holovatii, a national deputy who has spearheaded the investigation into the authenticity of the tape recordings made in the president's inner sanctum by Maj. Mykola Melnychenko, a former bodyguard to the president now in hiding in an unknown location in Europe.

"They did not establish either falsification or editing, and they have explained why," added the controversial lawmaker.

However, National Deputy Oleksander Lavrynovych, the chairman of the parliamentary committee, said the results only further muddle the issues.

"We have made no progress, practically. There is no acknowledgment of authenticity, and neither is there proof that [the tapes] are not authentic," said Mr. Lavrynovych, who explained that he had not had time for a thorough analysis of the report because Mr. Holovatii had not given him a copy.

The relationship between Mr. Lavrynovych and Mr. Holovatii has become a sideshow in this case because the outspoken and dogged secretary of the committee often has wrenched the spotlight from its low-key chairman. During a February 23 press conference Mr. Holovatii said Mr. Lavrynovych had been invited to attend the meeting with the press, but had excused himself because he had another appointment.

When contacted by certain television media for a comment on the results of the analysis, however, Mr. Lavrynovych, said he was in the process of trying to get a copy of the report from Vienna. He said he had been told the report had been mailed directly to Mr. Holovatii's home address.

Mr. Holovatii did not dispute the fact that he has had the report since February 22 and that he withheld its public release to get a sound Ukrainian translation of the English-language report. He did not explain why he did not provide the chairman of the investigative committee with a copy.

Since National Deputy Oleksander Moroz announced in November 2000 that he had received some 25 minutes of audiotape that he said implicate President Kuchma and his closest cronies in the disappearance of journalist Heorhii Gongadze, some 300 additional hours have surfaced. In them the president and top advisers are heard talking about kickbacks, payoffs, theft of large amounts of state money and the rigging of the 1999 presidential elections.

But the most damaging recordings - if they were proved to be authentic - would be the initial ones in which President Kuchma is heard discussing, initially with his Chief of Staff Volodymyr Lytvyn and then with Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Kravchenko, the need to get rid of Mr. Gongadze, a controversial if not widely known journalist who had started one of Ukraine's first Internet newspapers in early 2000. Mr. Gongadze had severely criticized the way the presidential elections were run and more and more frequently published stories on the illegal undertakings of government officials and lawmakers associated with the president, and political and business kingpins known as oligarchs.

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