Kuchma fires top prosecutor on suspicion of corruption (11/02/03)

Kuchma fires top prosecutor on suspicion of corruption

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Five days after an announcement by the Procurator General's Office that it had arrested a leading state militia investigator in connection with the Gongadze case, President Leonid Kuchma relieved its director for unprofessional behavior and suspicion of corruption.

Sviatoslav Piskun, who had directed the Procurator General's Office for a year and four months, was unceremoniously dumped after a presidential anti-corruption committee announced it had found that Ukraine's chief prosecutor had committed "serious violations of legislation and dishonorable deeds."

Olga Kolinko, head of President Leonid Kuchma's Committee on Organized Crime and Corruption, made the announcement during a press briefing on October 29. Valerii Tsvyhun, a member of the committee, noted that the decision was unanimous.

"No one voted against, and no one voiced a contrary opinion," explained Mr. Tsvyhun.

Among the most damaging charges leveled by the anti-corruption committee against Mr. Piskun are allegations that he had used departmental money to illegally import truckloads of goods from Russia. The committee also charged that he had taken extensive, luxurious vacations abroad - last year totaling 29 days - on a salary that would not seem to allow it.

In addition, the committee alleged that Mr. Piskun had forcibly taken over cases under investigation by other law enforcement agencies, generally involving large sums of money, and then dragged them out or closed them.

The anti-corruption committee, which includes the minister of justice, the minister of internal affairs, the director of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the head of the State Tax Administration, also agreed that Mr. Piskun had turned his post into a political soapbox in order "to create a political image for himself."

President Kuchma signed the decree dismissing Mr. Piskun after the anti-corruption committee made its recommendation public. Mr. Piskun could still face criminal investigation.

Few indications existed that Mr. Piskun was under fire in his post. In fact, his dismissal came only days after what seemed like a huge success for his agency. On October 24, his No. 2 man, Viktor Shokin, had announced that the Procurator General's Office had arrested a high-ranking Ministry of Internal Affairs official, Oleksii Pukach, the former chief of its Department of Criminal Investigations.

In making the announcement, Mr. Shokin said the arrest of Mr. Pukach was tied to the murder of Heorhii Gongadze, whose death three years ago remains the most high-profile unsolved case in Ukraine, with some of the country's highest ranking state officials still under suspicion.

At the time of the announcement Mr. Shokin stated that he was not ready to explain how the state militia's chief investigative office was tied to the Gongadze murder.

Mr. Shokin also made a second unexpected announcement, claiming his agency had determined that a second band of killers - dubbed Werewolves II in the press - consisting of current and former state militia members, was operating in the city of Kyiv and the surrounding region. He said also that there is evidence that the Gongadze case and the high-profile investigation into the death of Ihor Oleksandrov, a journalist in Donetsk who was beaten to death with a baseball bat, could be linked.

The existence of an initial Werewolves gang - insinuated in secret electronic recordings, allegedly of conversations in 1999 between President Kuchma and then Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Kravchenko - today head of the State Tax Administration and a member of the anti-corruption task force - came to light after the death of Ihor Honcharov, a former colonel in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the self-proclaimed leader of the criminal grouping.

A Kyiv-based non-governmental organization, the Institute of Mass Information, has claimed that it received detailed explanations of the dealings of the Werewolves gang from Mr. Honcharov, who died in prison while awaiting completion of a pre-trial investigation into charges of corruption leveled against him. The civic organization stated that Mr. Honcharov instructed it to open the 13 pages of diary-like entries only after his death.

During a press conference called two days after the announcement of the existence of Werewolves II, Mr. Piskun refuted the allegations made by his second-in-command and explained that Mr. Shokin had spoken about the existence of a second criminal grouping of killers within the ranks of law enforcement "before all the facts had been gathered."

Minister of Internal Affairs Mykola Bilokon and Security Service of Ukraine Chief Ihor Smeshko, both of whom took part in the meeting with journalists, supported Mr. Piskun's conclusions.

"The Ministry of Internal Affairs has no such information. It doesn't exist," said Mr. Bilokon.

Mr. Smeshko added, "No information about such a gang has come to light."

Two days later, speaking during the announcement of Mr. Piskun's dismissal, Mr. Bilokon stated that while the procurator general had tried to put the blame for the premature announcement on Mr. Shokin, he should, nonetheless, have been aware of what was to be announced, and therefore he should take responsibility "for needlessly alarming the residents of Kyiv and its surroundings."

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