Comments by deputy prosecutor muddy the waters of Gongadze case (02/03/02)

Comments by deputy prosecutor muddy the waters of Gongadze case

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Comments by Ukraine's Deputy Procurator General Oleksander Bahanets that the Council of Europe had changed its stance on the creation of an international commission to investigate the murder of journalist Heorhii Gongadze brought a critical response from Reporters Without Borders on January 28.

The remarks by Mr. Bahanets, made in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine on January 25, were among several regarding the investigation into the murder of Heorhii Gongadze, the controversial Ukrainian journalist who founded one of the country's first Internet newspapers before he disappeared in September 2000, that did not hold up to closer scrutiny.

Mr. Bahanets told the Ukrainian news agency that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which has been calling for the formation of an independent body to investigate what happened to Mr. Gongadze, had ultimately decided that there was no basis for establishing such a commission.

In a statement released to the press, Reporters Without Borders, a human rights group that monitors press freedoms, said that Mr. Bahanets' assertions were erroneous and baseless.

"Reporters Without Borders believes that such an assertion is nothing more than a strategy to which Ukrainian authorities ever more often submit in order to delay establishing the murderer of Heorhii Gongadze," explained the statement.

It said that while Latvian Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis, the head of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, had made a statement that Ukraine lacks the legal basis that would allow for an international investigative committee to work in Ukraine, three Ukrainian lawmakers will shortly introduce the needed legislation.

Reporters Without Borders also noted that on January 27, during its quarterly session, PACE officially turned to the Cabinet of Ministers of the Council of Europe to do the administrative work necessary to create the commission.

Mr. Bahanets also seemed to have missed the mark when he told Interfax-Ukraine that the Procurator General's Office had ordered that a German firm conduct a third independent examination of the remains of the body found in November 2000 near the town of Tarascha outside Kyiv that are thought to be those of Mr. Gongadze.

He said that the new examination was in response to persistent requests for another forensic examination by the journalist's mother, Lesia, and his wife, Myroslava, and a desire to appease the Council of Europe. He explained, according to Interfax-Ukraine, that the German experts, who were yet to be chosen, and Ukraine's director of the Bureau of Forensic Examinations would do the tests jointly. He added that afterwards the German side could take evidence to Germany for further study.

However, as Interfax-Ukraine later noted, German officials could not verify that they had received a request from Ukraine on the matter.

"One of the conditions for sending a German expert for a forensic study in a criminal investigation in Ukraine would be an official request for legal aid from the Ukrainian side on the basis of the 1959 European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters," explained the German Embassy in a statement it released. "The German Embassy has not received such a request."

Mr. Bahanets also said that the investigation into the case of the murdered Ukrainian journalist had taken a positive turn and that now there was some doubt among investigators that a criminal underground figure by the name of "Cyclops" was responsible for Mr. Gongadze's death.

"Work on this case continues, and soon you will see that I do not lie," said Mr. Bahanets. "I am sure that this crime will be solved."

* * *

The same day that Mr. Bahanets gave his interview, a Kyiv district court rejected an appeal by Lesia Gongadze to launch a criminal investigation into the culpability of President Leonid Kuchma, presidential Chief of Staff Volodymyr Lytvyn and former Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Kravchenko in the murder of her son. Ukraine's Procurator General last year found that the three were not complicit in the criminal matter.

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