2004: THE YEAR IN REVIEW: A poisoning ... and an egging (01/16/05)

2004: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

A poisoning ... and an egging

Victor Yushchenko's campaign took a dramatic turn on September 5 when the candidate began to feel ill and that evening he began to vomit uncontrollably. Doctors worked to treat the father of six, but his condition continued to deteriorate. On September 9, with Mr. Yushchenko getting no better and complaining of general pain in the head, lung, abdominal and spinal regions, a decision was made by his family and his campaign team to transport the presidential candidate to Rudolfinerhaus, a renowned Viennese medical clinic. There a team of 12 doctors did extensive blood and radiological testing on the presidential candidate, including CAT scans of the brain.

Dr. Mykola Korpan, a Ukrainian doctor who was part of the medical team, told various Ukrainian mass media on September 21 that the testing showed that Mr. Yushchenko was suffering "an atypical medical condition" that had affected various organs of his body. Dr. Korpan explained that no known poisoning from food or drink, which would generally be bacterial in nature, could result in the symptoms exhibited by Mr. Yushchenko, including localized paralysis, pain in the lungs, erosion and bleeding of the pancreas and inflammation of the large intestine.

Mr. Yushchenko, puffy-faced, drooling and teary-eyed, made his first public appearance on September 18 after being released from the Austrian hospital. At that point, the leader of the race for the presidential seat told a crowd of some 15,000 supporters that he would not be stopped in his quest to win the presidency, no matter what methods might still be used by those out to restrain him. "You will not poison us. You do not have enough bullets and KamAZ trucks. You cannot break us," said Mr. Yushchenko, his voice strong and unwavering, although he did not look well. Throughout his speech he dabbed a handkerchief to swollen eyes and partially paralyzed lips that did not allow him to speak or swallow properly.

Three days later, on September 21, looking somewhat better but still unable to speak distinctly, Mr. Yushchenko openly told an attentive and deadly silent Parliament that state authorities were responsible for his poisoning two weeks earlier. "Today we are talking about a political kitchen that orders murders. The next one could be you," said Mr. Yushchenko, emotion again charging his usually restrained delivery. Mr. Yushchenko had harsh words for parliamentary colleagues who had dismissed his condition as being the result of a preference for exotic Japanese foods or of a drinking binge.

As the session hall fell silent, Mr. Yushchenko challenged the lawmakers to speak up publicly if they believed what had been said about him. "Tell me, in the last 10-15 years, raise your hands and tell me if you have ever seen me drunk or out of control," challenged Mr. Yushchenko. "I am not a gourmand of the Eastern nor the Western kitchen. I eat the same meals as you and 47 million other Ukrainians: borsch, potatoes and salo."

Procurator General Hennadii Vasyliev, while stating that an investigation would take place into the circumstances surrounding Mr. Yushchenko's illness, openly questioned whether the poisoning took place in Ukraine. "He left for Vienna looking normal, but returned very different," Mr. Vasyliev said.

But in a strange twist to the story, Dr. Lothar Wicke, official spokesman for the Rudolfinerhaus Clinic, said on September 29 that examination of Mr. Yushchenko by hospital doctors and tests done on him did not lead to a conclusion that he had been poisoned. Dr. Wicke added that the hospital also had not excluded that a chemical substance could have caused his problems.

In yet a stranger twist to the story, officials of the Rudolfinerhaus Clinic then released a statement on October 3 denying that they had ever suggested that Mr. Yushchenko was not poisoned. They identified as a forgery a press release issued earlier on their behalf in which such conclusions were publicized. Signed by Dr. Michael Zimpfer, the hospital's president, and Dr. Wicke, the statement refuted information found in a press release that was extensively distributed on September 28 to nearly all mass media outlets in Ukraine and abroad just after a press conference had taken place at the hospital. The press release led many of the world's largest media outlets, including the BBC and The New York Times, to conclude improperly that Mr. Yushchenko had deceived the Ukrainian public.

"With regard to the latest symptoms of his illness and the poisoning that may have caused it, I want to make the following statement as a supplement and qualification to the press release of September 28, 2004, which was not signed or authorized by me and which could have been interpreted to state that poisoning had been excluded a priori," read the statement that Dr. Zimpfer issued on October 3. It emphasized that only Dr. Zimpfer or Dr. Mykola Korpan, Mr. Yushchenko's attending physician, a Ukrainian, were authorized to talk about the state of Mr. Yushchenko's health and his treatment, and only with the lawmaker's permission.

Speaking with the press on October 4, Dr. Korpan revealed that in the last week his Kyiv apartment had been searched and his neighbors questioned by Ukrainian law enforcement officials.

Mr. Yushchenko's campaign manager, Oleksander Zinchenko, said on October 4 that his team had traced the distribution of the falsified press release to TriMedia, a Russian-based public relations firm. Mr. Zinchenko read a letter before lawmakers during the Verkhovna Rada session on October 7 which he said he had just received from Rudolfinerhaus. In the letter, the doctors analyzing the results of tissue reviewing asked permission from Mr. Yuschenko to bring in biological warfare specialists to properly analyze the tests done on the presidential candidate and ascertain the cause of his condition.

Mr. Yushchenko remained hospitalized at Rudolfinerhaus on October 7, having checked himself back in on September 30 after his condition had not improved as had been expected. While a patient at the hospital, Mr. Yushchenko gave hair and skin samples, which were to be used by the hospital to conduct forensic analyses to determine what specifically had poisoned the leading presidential contender sometime before or on September 5, the day he fell ill after having dinner with Security Service of Ukraine Chief Ihor Smeshko.

Mr. Yushchenko, looking worse than ever and far older than his 50 years, returned to Ukraine on October 11 from the Viennese hospital, where he received additional treatment for the mysterious illness.

It would take more than two months before an answer came with regard to Mr. Yushchenko's poisoning. Doctors at the Rudolfinerhaus Clinic in Vienna, Austria, announced on December 11 that Mr. Yushchenko had been poisoned with a form of dioxin.

Rudolfinerhaus Clinic President Zimpfer thanked doctors from around the world for helping "to clarify the difficult Yushchenko illness that has not been observed anywhere else beforehand." One test conducted in London showed that Mr. Yushchenko's dioxin level was 6,000 times higher than normal. Abraham Brouwer, a professor of environmental toxicology at the Free University in Amsterdam, said the concentration amounted to some 100,000 units per gram of blood fat and said it was the second highest level ever recorded in human history.

Following the announcement by the Austrian doctors, Ukraine's new Procurator General Sviatoslav Piskun announced on December 12 that an investigation had been opened into Mr. Yushchenko's poisoning allegations. The move was followed the next day by the announcement that a commission of lawmakers from Parliament had reopened a similar investigation, headed by Volodymyr Sivkovych, a supporter of Mr. Yanukovych. Mr. Sivkovych had led an earlier Parliamentary inquiry in October that concluded Mr. Yushchenko was suffering from a combination of a viral infection and several other diseases.

* * *

Viktor Yanukovych also made news with what many have since called a staged dramatic event. During a campaign stop in Ivano-Frankivsk on September 24, he was hit by an egg as he was getting off of a bus and was subsequently taken to a hospital.

Members of the presidential campaign staff and personal entourage of Mr. Yanukovych who traveled with him as part of a campaign swing through the western region of Ukraine maintained that Mr. Yanukovych was hit with more than merely a single egg as he disembarked from his campaign bus to meet with students before Stefanyk Prykarpattia University. They said that at least one "hard object" caused injury to his head. However they did not identify exactly what that object was.

Mr. Yanukovych and his campaign officials decided not to pursue a criminal case after law enforcement officials apprehended and arrested a single student, Dmytro Romaniuk, a 17-year-old in his first year of university studies, who they said admitted to throwing the egg out of frustration over the events surrounding the health of Mr. Yushchenko, his favored candidate.

The prime minister said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine after he returned to Kyiv that he had gone to the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast as the head of government to better understand the problems the region faces. He said he failed to grasp why he had been treated so badly. "I as a politician have not said a single offensive word to my opponents for the whole election campaign. Now I understand: nationalism is a disease and unfortunately I must state this," he said.

Only Channel 5, considered an oppositionist broadcaster that supports the presidential candidacy of Mr. Yushchenko, provided its viewers with a slow-motion replay of the incident. Television footage did not clearly show what hit Mr. Yanukovych as he disembarked from his bus to greet students lined up on the sidewalk, although it appeared to be a single object. It did, however, clearly show the prime minister first looking down to his suit jacket to notice the object and then seemingly reacting to what he saw - rather than to what he felt - before falling backwards to the ground.

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