Third high-profile Ukrainian journalist found dead (11/24/02)

Third high-profile Ukrainian journalist found dead

by Maryna Makhnonos
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - Ukrainian journalists and an international media rights organization sounded new alarms this week about press freedom in Ukraine following the alleged suicide of a popular news agency's director, which is the third high-profile journalist death over two years in this country.

Robert Menard, head of Reporters Without Borders, said police suspicion that director of the Ukrainski Novyny news agency Mykhailo Kolomiyets committed suicide was a "hasty conclusion," according to the Institute of Mass Information, the official representative of Mr. Menard's group in Ukraine.

The IMI website reported that, in a letter to Ukraine's top prosecutor, Sviatoslav Piskun, on November 19, Mr. Menard proposed cooperation in investigating the journalist's death, including the involvement of French forensic experts.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kolomiyets' family and colleagues demanded that Procurator General Piskun open a criminal investigation and that an autopsy be conducted.

"To the mind of Mr. Kolomiyets' relatives and friends, he had no reasons for suicide as he was a stable and strong-willed person," the news agency's journalists said in a statement on November 20.

They have previously said that the disappearance could "result from Ukrainski Novyny's independent news policy that is free from censorship and unrestricted in reporting political and economic news."

Interfax reported that Ukraine's League of Economic Journalists said on November 19 that "one of several believable reasons for the disappearance was his (Mr. Kolomiyets') professional activity; we don't believe it was suicide."

Mr. Kolomiyets abruptly stopped working on October 21. Ukrainian police said they confirmed that he arrived in the Belarusian capital, Miensk, on October 23. His friend Liubov Ruban called the agency when she heard reports that Mr. Kolomiyets was missing and told reporters that he said he left "due to physiological problems," according to Ukrainski Novyny.

According to the news agency's statement, Ms. Ruban said her last conversation with the journalist was late on October 28 when he "said farewell," and his cellphone was later switched off.

Mr. Kolomiyets also made a phone call to his mother that same day. His family disputed police reports that the journalist had been in contact with them several times before October 28, saying they had not heard from him since he disappeared.

Belarusian police said that on October 30 they found the body of an unknown man hanging from a tree in a forest close to the town of Molodechno, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Miensk, the Ukrainian News reported. They buried the body on November 11 and later recovered it on the request of Ukrainian investigators. Relatives on November 20 identified the body as that of Mr. Kolomiyets.

Both Belarusian and Ukrainian police suspected suicide, saying no signs of violent death were evident.

Mr. Kolomiyets' staff questioned numerous gaps in the case, asking why Belarusian police buried the body while their Ukrainian colleagues were searching for the journalist. They also criticized police reports that the journalist's death was a suicide, calling it a rush to render a judgment before the facts were known.

Mr. Kolomiyets, 44, created Ukrainski Novyny (Ukrainian News) in 1997 and owned half its shares. The agency had started to report on politics in recent months in addition to its economic newswire.

The Kolomiyets case is the third death in two years of a well-known journalist from Ukraine. In 2000, Internet newsletter editor Heorhii Gongadze disappeared and his headless body was later found in woods outside Kyiv. TV company director Ihor Aleksandrov was beaten to death in the Donetsk region in 2001. Both crimes remain unsolved.

Opposition groups have accused President Leonid Kuchma of involvement in Mr. Gongadze's killing, basing their claims on audio recordings of the president's conversations with top aides made by a former presidential security officer. Mr. Kuchma strongly denied the charges and ordered measures to improve journalists' safety and provide the authorities' assistance in their work.

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