ANALYSIS: Gongadze case could open Pandora's box in Ukraine (03/20/05)

ANALYSIS

Gongadze case could open Pandora's box in Ukraine

by Roman Kupchinsky
RFE/RL Newsline

Ukrainian Procurator General Sviatoslav Piskun's press conference in Kyiv on March 2 revealed a number of new developments in the rapidly widening investigation of the slaying of Internet journalist Heorhii Gongadze.

Mr. Piskun began by announcing that secret recordings made by former presidential security guard Mykola Melnychenko in former President Leonid Kuchma's office from the summer of 1999 to September 2000 will be allowed as evidence in the investigation if their authenticity is established by an international commission.

Mr. Piskun then invited Mr. Melnychenko, who has been granted refugee status in the United States, to return to Kyiv with his original tapes and recording equipment to take part in the authentication process. To pave the way for Mr. Melnychenko's return, Mr. Piskun said his safety would be guaranteed and said that charges against Mr. Melnychenko pertaining to the revelation of state secrets would be dropped.

Furthermore, Mr. Piskun announced that former Internal Affairs Minister Yurii Kravchenko has been summoned to appear at the Procurator General's Office on March 4 for questioning in connection with the case.

The decision to interrogate Mr. Kravchenko - who was found dead on March 4, just hours before he was to meet with prosecutors - and the possible inclusion of Mr. Melnychenko's recordings as evidence is a dramatic escalation in the search for who ordered the killing of Gongadze in September 2000. If the recordings are found to be genuine, they could open a Pandora's box and have a far-reaching impact.

The Melnychenko tapes contain hundreds of hours of conversations that were recorded on digital audio files, most of which have not been transcribed due to poor audio quality and lack of funds to enhance the quality of the recordings. While the tapes were determined to be fakes by the Procurator General's Office under President Kuchma, they are widely believed in Ukraine to be genuine, and the pending re-evaluation will be conducted under vastly more transparent circumstances. In the United States, a private audio-verification laboratory hired by Mr. Melnychenko, Bek Tek, has already examined excerpts of the recordings and found them to be genuine and untampered with.

If purported conversations between Messrs. Kuchma and Kravchenko on the tapes are introduced as evidence, both men could be subject to arrest on criminal charges as accomplices to either kidnapping or murder. In addition, the scope of the Gongadze case could widen to include other people whose voices were allegedly captured on the Melnychenko tapes. The former chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Leonid Derkach, and Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn, who at the time headed the Kuchma administration, figure prominently among those who could face charges.

Another important factor is that, by introducing the tapes as evidence in the Gongadze case, a precedent will have been set and the recordings could play a critical role in other, as yet unopened, criminal cases. This increases the probability that charges of obstruction of justice could be filed against two former to prosecutors, Mykhailo Potebenko and Hennadii Vasiliev.

Other cases based on the recordings that would likely be opened if Mr. Melnychenko's recordings are authenticated are: unsanctioned electronic surveillance of elected officials by the SBU and its former chief, Mr. Derkach; illegal arms sales; fraudulent use of state funds for Mr. Kuchma's 1999 presidential campaign; alleged conversations with then Donetsk Oblast Chairman Viktor Yanukovych about illegally removing independent judges; among others. In all these cases, President Kuchma is allegedly recorded on the Melnychenko tapes giving illegal orders to his subordinates or approving their illegal initiatives.

The dilemma facing President Viktor Yushchenko is how far the new government is willing to go in prosecuting the misdeeds of the Kuchma administration? During the Orange Revolution, Mr. Yushchenko supporters demanded that criminality be punished - and Mr. Yushchenko himself is on record pledging to punish those responsible for crime and corruption in the past.

If the tapes are found to be genuine, and all indications are that they will be, a vast network of former officials allegedly involved in state-sponsored criminality could be liable for prosecution.

Others in Kyiv fear that the process could be undermined if, for example, certain members of the present government were to hear their own voices on the recordings.

Another important consideration is that a housecleaning on the basis of the tapes would be a serious blow to the pro-Kuchma and pro-Yanukovych forces prior to the parliamentary elections scheduled for 2006. A series of trials with their leaders in the dock accused of corruption and other crimes would badly damage their chances to gain a majority in the Verkhovna Rada.

Roman Kupchinsky, a Prague-based analyst, is a contributor to RFE/RL.

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