American detective agency says Kuchma not involved in Gongadze's disappearance (09/30/01)

American detective agency says Kuchma not involved in Gongadze's disappearance

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - A report by a leading U.S. private detective agency hired by a Ukrainian political party close to the presidential administration has stated that President Leonid Kuchma was not involved in the disappearance and death of journalist Heorhii Gongadze. The report released on September 25 fails, however, to explain who is responsible.

That same day the Council of Europe called for a new impartial investigation into the events surrounding the disappearance of Mr. Gongadze - a case that has drawn glaring international attention to Ukraine.

Kroll Associates, hired by Labor Ukraine, a political party whose leadership is close to the Ukrainian president and includes his son-in-law, issued a 50-page report in which it concluded that nothing exists to suggest a link between President Kuchma and the Internet and radio journalist.

"There is no conclusive evidence to show that President Kuchma ordered or was otherwise involved in the murder of Heorhii Gongadze," states the report.

The U.S.-based detective agency, which has a 40-year track record, questioned the credibility of Maj. Mykola Melnychenko, the former presidential bodyguard in the Security Service of Ukraine who claims to have placed a recording device behind a couch in Mr. Kuchma's office and recorded him and other top Ukrainian officials planning the journalist's disappearance. The report suggests that Mr. Melnychenko could not have acted alone.

Based on interviews, site examinations, and scientific and technical analyses of the tape recordings, the report on the seven-month investigation found that the manner in which the recordings are claimed to have been made are dubious and that the authenticity of the recordings are questionable.

Mr. Gongadze disappeared just over a year ago, on September 16, 2000, after leaving the home of the editor-in-chief of Ukrainska Pravda, the Internet newspaper he had founded several months earlier. His headless body was discovered two months later in a shallow grave near the town of Tarascha, some 75 miles outside of Kyiv.

The murder caused an international sensation several weeks later with the appearance of audio recordings allegedly containing the voice of President Kuchma, his chief of staff and his minister of internal affairs, who apparently were planning Mr. Gongadze's disappearance, with abduction by Chechen rebels cited as one of the scenarios being considered.

Since then there has been controversy surrounding the investigation into the journalist's disappearance and also the remains of the body, which Mr. Gongadze's wife and mother suspect have been replaced as part of an elaborate cover-up by government officials.

Kroll Associates said its efforts to recreate the manner in which Mr. Melnychenko said he recorded President Kuchma determined that the recordings would have had to contain significant electronic interference from a walk-through metal detector located near the couch, unless the former presidential bodyguard used a device "not susceptible to this type of interference."

The report also emphasized that much doubt exists that Mr. Melnychenko could have made the extensive recordings without help. It also stated that at least some short passages in the recordings in which the Gongadze name is mentioned have undergone editing.

The detective team admitted that it had only copies of the tapes provided by Mr. Melnychenko to the parliamentary committee investigating the affair because the former presidential bodyguard refused to supply the originals and declined to meet with the agency for an interview.

"We do not know why he has refused," said Michael Cherkasky, president of Kroll Associates, during a press conference at the Labor Ukraine offices on September 25.

The firm did meet with President Kuchma and Volodymyr Lytvyn, his chief of staff, both of whom denied that they were involved in the murder of the Ukrainian journalist. Mr. Cherkasky said the Ukrainian president admitted that his voice was on the recording, but insisted that the tape was a forgery. The head of Kroll underscored that the experts agree on this point.

"We had a long talk with the president, and he said he had not ordered the murder and explained why," said Mr. Cherkasky. "We came to the conclusion that he was convincing."

Mr. Cherkasky explained that two other key officials in the affair, former Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Kravchenko and former Security Services of Ukraine Chairman Leonid Derkach, refused to meet with Kroll's experts, as did Procurator General Mykhailo Potebenko, who has led the controversial investigation.

A lack of time and resources prevented his firm from determining who ordered the killings or why, explained the detective agency's president, adding that initially the investigation was scheduled to be over within three months but had already dragged on for more than double that time with no end in sight.

Critics of President Kuchma have dismissed the report as being of a purely political nature and said its release at this time is meant merely to bolster the images of the political parties that support the president in the days before the beginning of the parliamentary campaign season due to kick off on October 12. The critics also question why no attention was given to others mentioned in the first days after the journalist disappeared, including Oleksander Volkov, a prominent politician and close confidante of President Kuchma.

"This was simply an effort to wash clean the reputation of Mr. Kuchma with the money of Labor Ukraine," commented Yulia Tymoshenko, a leader of the opposition movement trying to oust the Ukrainian president, during a press conference on September 27. "And I believe it was a failed effort," she added.

Meanwhile, the Council of Europe suggested on the same day that Kroll Associates delivered its report that a new investigation must take place into the disappearance of Mr. Gongadze, and that it should be conduced by an independent international commission.

Hanne Severinsen, Council of Europe rapporteur for Ukraine, stated during a press conference in Strasbourg, France - which was also attended by Myroslava Gongadze, the journalist's widow, and Robert Menard, director of Reporters Without Borders - that she had asked European Union member-countries to provide law enforcement experts to serve on the commission. She said a thorough investigation is needed to determine "who is standing behind this murder."

Ms. Severinsen said she believes she will get approval from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for her proposal. Later she told reporters that Maj. Melnychenko had filed an application with the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to provide testimony before such a commission, if it is created.

During the press conference, Ms. Gongadze countered statements made by Kroll officials regarding Mr. Melnychenko's refusal to be interviewed.

"As it stands now, Mr. Melnychenko is ready to give testimony to any official bodies, despite what the Kroll investigative agency said," explained Mrs. Gongadze.

She said Ukraine's law enforcement officials should support an international effort to find her husband's murderers, given their inability to solve the case on their own, as should President Kuchma "if he wants to prove his innocence, and if he is concerned about Ukraine's future."

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