Ukraine's chief prosecutor clears Kuchma of complicity in Gongadze case (10/07/01)

Ukraine's chief prosecutor clears Kuchma of complicity in Gongadze case

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The Procurator General's Office of Ukraine has cleared President Leonid Kuchma of complicity in the disappearance of Heorhii Gongadze and rejected a request by the mother of the slain journalist that it launch a criminal investigation regarding the actions of the president and his top officials in the affair, reported Interfax-Ukraine on September 28.

Assistant Procurator General Olek-sander Bahanets said in a letter he sent Lesia Gongadze, the journalist's mother, that his office had looked into the actions of the president and two of his top-ranking officials, Chief of Staff Volodymyr Lytvyn and Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Kravchenko, based on conversations on a tape recording in which voices allegedly belonging to them are heard to be planning the journalist's abduction that Interfax-Ukraine reported. In the letter Mr. Bahanets explained that his office had found all allegations against the three to be false. Mr. Bahanets did not respond to The Ukrainian Weekly's request for comment.

The tape recordings at the center of the Gongadze affair were made by Maj. Mykola Melnychenko, a former bodyguard in Mr. Kuchma's presidential service, and released a little over two months after Mr. Gongadze, a radio journalist and founder of the Internet newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, disappeared on September 16, 2000.

Law enforcement officials have maintained that the digital recordings - allegedly made with a piece of equipment hidden behind a couch in the president's office - are, at the very least, creatively edited conversations between Mr. Kuchma and his cohorts, and could even be utter fabrications. Both official and independent tests have not been able to authoritatively either verify or reject the authenticity of the recordings.

Andrii Fedur, attorney for Mr. Gongadze's mother, said on October 3 that neither he nor Mrs. Gongadze had received any official correspondence from the country's chief prosecutor in answer to their request for an investigation of the president. He also stated that he expects a refusal, adding that he has never heard of any investigation undertaken by the Prosecutor General's Office to determine the involvement of the Ukrainian president or those associated with his administration.

He also repeated a previously cited complaint that the Procurator General's Office continues to deny his client access to the materials of the investigation.

"We have not been allowed to see the information, even though we should have access because Mrs. Gongadze has been designated as a victim," explained Mr. Fedur.

A criminal court gave Mr. Gongadze's mother and his wife, Myroslava, special status earlier this year, which allows them to closely follow the investigation, which includes access to documents and investigative meetings. The Procurator General's Office has said the court order would allow the two women to see the materials only after the case is closed.

Mr. Fedur said that once he receives the official notification from the chief prosecutor on the denial to open an investigation against the president - which he expects to be in the form of an official decision - he will appeal it to a court of law.

Mrs. Gongadze's attorney also said the situation regarding the controversial headless corpse found in mid-November, 75 miles outside of Kyiv near the town of Tarascha, remains unresolved. The nearly completely decomposed body continues to lie in a Kyiv mortuary because Mrs. Gongadze has refused to officially claim it. She maintains that she will continue to doubt that it belongs to her son until another independent analysis is made of the remains. Mrs. Gongadze has said previously that in her opinion law enforcement officials have replaced the body to destroy evidence in an elaborate cover-up.

According to Mr. Fedur, the Procurator General's Office has yet to make a decision on the matter of another test.

"I do not understand why there has been no decision. They probably have their own reasons. We, however, do not know them," said Mr. Fedur. "Even with appeals from human rights organizations, they have not budged."

The Council of Europe last week said it would consider supporting an independent investigation into the disappearance of Mr. Gongadze, as well as another analysis of the remains of the Tarascha body.

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