Yushchenko fires top prosecutor (10/23/05)

Yushchenko fires top prosecutor

by Yana Sedova
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko fired Procurator General Sviatoslav Piskun, the nation's top prosecutor, on October 14 without citing any reason, throwing the door open for political speculation and accusations.

Mr. Piskun has served as Ukraine's procurator general since December 10, 2004, when a court ruled that former President Leonid Kuchma had illegally fired him nearly two years ago.

He immediately became the target of criticism from those most closely involved in the Heorhii Gongadze murder case.

Among others, Justice Minister Serhii Holovatyi and the journalist's widow, Myroslava Gongadze, alleged that Mr. Piskun was incompetent or unwilling in investigating the murder.

"His resignation is absolutely logical," Ms. Gongadze told The Weekly on October 19. "It's a step for progress, but it would have been better had it happened seven months ago."

The timing of Mr. Piskun's firing has become the latest fodder for debate and speculation among Ukrainians.

Just four days earlier, Mr. Piskun announced he was prosecuting Petro Poroshenko, Mr. Yushchenko's close political ally and godfather of one of his children.

He charged Mr. Poroshenko, former secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, with bribing businessmen in order to gain control of a luxury, high-rise apartment complex in Kyiv.

Speculation of revenge against Mr. Piskun grew more intense when Presidential Secretariat Chair Oleh Rybachuk hinted that the prosecutor was overstepping his bounds during a press conference the day of the firing.

"Sviatoslav Mykhailovych was getting so excited recently, and he was opening so many cases," Mr. Rybachuk said in a sarcastic tone on October 14. "We just might have prevented him from opening a case against himself, having investigated it in one day and then imprisoning himself."

Political experts speculated that Mr. Piskun opened the case against Mr. Poroshenko to cozy up to Ms. Tymoshenko and her political coalition.

Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc members such as Andrii Shkil rallied behind Mr. Piskun soon afterwards. Firing Mr. Piskun became an option for Mr. Yushchenko only after the criminal case was opened, Mr. Shkil said.

Meanwhile, the president "stormily" responded to the criminal case against Mr. Poroshenko, Mr. Piskun said in an October 17 interview with the Ukrainian newspaper Svoboda. "To put it lightly, it was quite unpleasant for him to learn of the case," Mr. Piskun added.

Mr. Piskun alleged his firing was a political maneuver by Mr. Yushchenko and his allies, partly because they wanted him to revive a criminal case against Ms. Tymoshenko, the former prime minister of Ukraine.

"It will be used against Tymoshenko during the upcoming parliamentary elections," Mr. Piskun said.

Gongadze's supporters widely criticized Mr. Piskun after his first tenure as procurator general, which lasted between July 2002 and October 2003. During that time, no progress was made in investigating the Gongadze murder.

In spite of that, Mr. Yushchenko kept Mr. Piskun as procurator general when he was elected president.

When Mr. Yushchenko fired his top government officials on September 8 and kept Mr. Piskun on, political experts and Ukrainian citizens alike began suspecting that Mr. Kuchma had struck a deal with his successor to shield him from prosecution in Gongadze's murder.

"[The Procurator General's Office] gave many promises concerning the Gongadze matter and some other resonant cases, but no one has been convicted," said Volodymyr Polokhalo, the editor of the Ukrainian website Politychna Dumka (formerly a magazine), which is currently seeking financing.

However, Mr. Yushchenko hushed those suspicions, at least temporarily, on October 6 when he appointed Serhii Holovatyi as Ukraine's justice minister.

Mr. Holovatyi served as a lawyer to Lesia Gongadze, the mother of the slain journalist. He also represented Mykola Melnychenko in the European Court of Human Rights when Mr. Kuchma's former security chief alleged that he was illegally denied the right to run for the Verkhovna Rada.

Then, in an October 16 interview with BBC, Mr. Yushchenko said Mr. Kuchma won't have any immunity if prosecutors are able to prove the former president's involvement in Gongadze's murder.

A Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) resolution issued on October 5 severely criticized Mr. Piskun for dividing the Gongadze murder investigation into two parts: those who executed the murder, and those who organized and ordered it. "This looks like a step toward shifting responsibility from the organizers and orderers," the resolution stated.

The report likely hastened Mr. Piskun's firing, experts said.

"There were so many pretensions from so many sides that I think the last straw in Mr. Piskun's firing was the PACE resolution," Myroslava Gongadze said.

Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Lutsenko supported Ms. Gongadze's belief, citing investigative ineffectiveness as the reason for Mr. Piskun's firing, he told the Channel 5 television network on October 17.

"Prosecutors have launched more than a thousand investigations involving officials of various sorts, but none of them has been brought to court," Mr. Lutsenko said.

Mr. Piskun's tenure will be remembered as the most humiliating period in the history of the Procurator General's Office - a time when he "undermined people's trust into those who must protect the law," said Hennadii Vasyliev, Mr. Piskun's predecessor and a fiercely pro-Russian politician.

No progress in investigating Mr. Gongadze's murder was made during Mr. Vasyliev's one-year tenure either.

So far, it's not clear who will become the next procurator general.

Until the March parliamentary elections, the necessary majority needed in the Verkhovna Rada to approve a successor isn't possible, said Taras Chornovil, a national deputy of the Party of the Regions.

In that case, Mr. Yushchenko will likely fill the post with a current Procurator General's Office employee, political experts said.

Whoever is chosen, the procurator general needs to be independent of Ukraine's political interests, Myroslava Gongadze said.

Mr. Holovatyi said Mr. Piskun has no legal grounds to appeal his firing. However, that doesn't seem to bother the former procurator general this time around.

"I am happy - I swear!" Mr. Piskun said after his firing. "Don't you see under what conditions I had been working all these nine months? It was truly schizophrenia."

The firing "has added 10 years to my life," said Mr. Piskun, who indicated that he will actively pursue a career in politics.

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