National deputy releases documents on intelligence agency's spying abroad (03/07/04)

National deputy releases documents on intelligence agency's spying abroad

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - National Deputy Mykola Tomenko made public on March 3 abridged versions of allegedly secret documents that ex-Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Gen. Valerii Kravchenko claimed last month prove the Ukrainian intelligence agency illegally spied on opposition political leaders and high-ranking government officials. It included instructions to use the Ukrainian diaspora to get a feel for how certain events occurring in Ukraine are viewed abroad.

"Gen. Kravchenko and I think that these directives have the markings of criminal offenses, but [President Leonid] Kuchma and [Procurator General Hennadii] Vasyliev do not. Let the people decide who has a point," Mr. Tomenko said in explaining why he was making the information public.

The day before, Mr. Vasyliev said the contents of the documents - the originals of which Mr. Tomenko had turned over to his office - did not substantiate the charges made by General Kravchenko. Mr. Vasyliev added, however, that the matter of the general's culpability in revealing the contents of secret state documents was still under investigation.

On February 18 General Kravchenko, senior liaison officer between the Ukrainian and German intelligence services at the Ukrainian Embassy in Berlin, showed up unexpectedly at Deutsche Welle, German public radio, and announced in an interview that he had secret documents in his possession proving that officials in Kyiv had ordered SBU intelligence officers to track the movements and contacts of Ukrainian government and political leaders traveling abroad.

Procurator General Vasyliev suggested that Gen. Kravchenko, who claims he broke no Ukrainian laws, return to Ukraine to defend himself against possible charges. Gen. Kravchenko is currently in hiding in Germany. He told Mr. Tomenko in Berlin that he would request political asylum in Germany if Ukrainian prosecutors decided not to investigate his allegation.

Mr. Vasyliev warned National Deputy Tomenko that he, too, could face charges of revealing state secrets if he made the documents available to the press. But Mr. Tomenko told journalists that experts of the parliamentary Committee on Free Speech that he chairs had agreed that no state secrets were being revealed.

The Ukrainian lawmaker traveled to Berlin on March 26 to retrieve the documents from Gen. Kravchenko after the intelligence services officer said he was ready to turn the information he had gathered over to Ukraine's Procurator General's Office for criminal investigation. Gen. Kravchenko had said in an interview on February 19 with the Ukrainian newspaper Dzerkalo Tyzhnia that he would trust the information with only three lawmakers in Ukraine's Parliament: Ihor Yukhnovsky of the Our Ukraine parliamentary faction, Borys Oliinyk of the Communist faction or Mr. Tomenko, another Our Ukraine member.

While reminding reporters that President Kuchma had said on February 24 that he gave permission for Gen. Kravchenko "to publish in the press all that he has in his possession" because "he has nothing," Mr. Tomenko distributed to reporters the texts of what he described as the key parts of four of eight documents that Gen. Kravchenko had turned over to him.

The four alleged government directives in the handouts gave explicit directions on information that should be gathered in conjunction with issues and events that could affect Ukraine's image abroad. The first directive requested information on a television program that would expose illegal trafficking in human organs in Ukraine. Data was requested on the possible contents of a German television program, "Mona Lisa," and the reporter and producer who put the news package on organ trafficking together. It also directed intelligence gathering "to determine what possibility existed that it would be shown on the television program 'Mona Lisa' and to use all means to stop its airing."

The second document related to trips by government officials who held positions of "minister and higher." It told intelligence officers to obtain information on who invited them, who paid for their stay, the nature and length of the visit, and with whom they met with outside the regular itinerary, "including with business circles."

The third directive ordered that intelligence officers obtain information about an international conference that Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko was organizing, supposedly planned for December 2003, which might have involved former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

It called for intelligence on the time and place of the event, the participants, the results and further possible activities of the participants.

The fourth directive made public by National Deputy Tomenko called for permanent intelligence gathering on all Ukrainian delegations, government and otherwise, that travel abroad whose actions might "have a negative affect on the internal and foreign policy strategies of Ukraine."

It also called for "activating work within the Ukrainian diaspora with the aim of obtaining vital advance information" which was "needed to assure the security of our country within the context of the image of Ukraine as it is seen within that country with regards to preparations for [Ukrainian] political reform, presidential elections, etc."

Mr. Tomenko told The Weekly that, according to 1999 law, the SBU had no right to gather information on politicians taking part in foreign conferences or meeting with foreign politicians and businessmen.

"This behavior is absolutely illegal," Mr. Tomenko said.

The national deputy said he believed that Gen. Kravchenko was one of a growing number of senior intelligence officers who were dissatisfied with the way recently appointed SBU Chief Ihor Smeshko had redirected the agency's resources and submersed it into domestic politics as an information-gathering tool for state authorities.

"They believe that the authorities are forcing them to work in intelligence gathering not for the security of the state but for political purposes," explained Mr. Tomenko.

At the end of February, Former SBU chief Volodymyr Radchenko had offered an alternative motive for what triggered Gen. Kravchenko's announcement. He described the SBU general, whom he called a personal friend, as a colleague disenchanted over his inability to save a sufficient amount of money to renovate his apartment before his impending retirement.

Mr. Radchenko said that Gen. Kravchenko had asked for and received a second posting in a foreign embassy, rare for an intelligence agent but allowed on occasion to those close to retirement in order to take advantage of the better pay they received there. However, he had run into some problems with the presidential security detail when President Kuchma was staying in Baden-Baden last December while recuperating from surgery. He said the incident led to Gen. Kravchenko's move to Kyiv, which led him to act irrationally.

| Home Page |