New procurator inherits unresolved high-profile cases (11/13/05)

New procurator inherits unresolved high-profile cases

by Yana Sedova
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Oleksander Medvedko was promoted from a deputy prosecutor's position to become Ukraine's new procurator general three weeks after President Viktor Yushchenko sacked his predecessor, Sviatoslav Piskun.

The Verkhovna Rada approved the president's nominee with 303 deputies voting for Mr. Medvedko on November 3.

The new procurator general inherits thousands of untried criminal cases and an office that had been severely criticized for its inactivity during the last 10 months.

"The Procurator General's Office failed to fulfill its duties, including investigation of many key criminal cases that had to confirm Ukraine as a lawful state," Mr. Yushchenko said on November 8 during his introduction of Mr. Medvedko as the country's new top prosecutor.

The investigations of the murders of journalists Heorhii Gongadze and Ihor Oleksandrov and the chair of the television company TOP in the Donetsk Oblast, must be a high-priority task for the procurator general, the president said. "These (investigations) will become a matter of your honor," Mr. Yushchenko said to Mr. Medvedko.

That presents a real challenge for the new procurator general as the Oleksandrov case became a black spot on Mr. Medvedko's résumé many years ago when he chaired the committee that investigated the journalist's murder. Evidence in the case was falsified and an innocent person was accused of the murder.

Shortly afterwards Mr. Medvedko moved to the Luhansk Oblast and assumed the position of first deputy regional procurator.

Mr. Medvedko denied his involvement in the Oleksandrov case's falsification and said other law enforcement officials were guilty.

Socialist Party Chairman Oleksander Moroz said in a November 4 interview with Radio Liberty that the Oleksandrov case was the main reason his party didn't vote for Mr. Medvedko. "Since he was in charge of the Oleksandrov case and the procurator's office sent him, he should have seen that the case was ordered," Mr. Moroz said. "But he never reacted."

Mr. Medvedko is responsible for the Oleksandrov investigation's failure, the Socialists said.

These facts paint a not very pretty picture of the new procurator general, one of Ukraine's most important positions, said Ivan Lozowy, president of the Kyiv-based Institute of Statehood and Democracy.

"This goes to the possibility that Mr. Medvedko was seriously recommended or lobbied for by someone from the president's circle or entourage," Mr. Lozowy said.

The president had never talked to him before, Mr. Medvedko said in Parliament on November 2, the day before the Rada vote on his confirmation; it was Oleh Rybachuk, the chair of the Presidential Secretariat, who carried on all the talks, he said.

"This is frightening, because this certainly is not the way that important government affairs should be handled," Mr. Lozowy said.

Volodymyr Fesenko, board chairman of the Penta Center for Applied Political Research, which contracts its services to various political parties in Ukraine, observed that "The president was interested in a figure that had no relations with political or business clans."

Mr. Yushchenko had been burned when Mr. Piskun held the procurator general's position and used it to show his loyalty to Yulia Tymoshenko, Mr. Fesenko added. "It was necessary to find a compromise figure who wouldn't irritate opposition factions and would seem rather neutral," he said.

Also, Mr. Medvedko was not involved in any recent scandals within the top levels of the administration, and this was another important argument for the president, said Yurii Yakymenko, director of political and legal programs at the Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Research.

The final argument in favor of the Medvedko appointment was the fact that Mr. Medvedko has worked as a public prosecutor for a long time, said Mr. Yakymenko.

Mr. Medvedko began his career in the Donetsk region as a senior investigator in the office of the procurator in Druzhkivka. In 1992 he took the position of procurator in Kostiantynivka, also in the Donetsk Oblast.

Nine years later Mr. Medvedko became the first deputy regional procurator in the Luhansk Oblast.

Mr. Medvedko twice held the position of deputy procurator general. He was first appointed in July 2002, but left the next year at his own request, according to the press service of the Procurator General's Office. He was re-appointed in December 2004.

However, except for the Oleksandrov case, Mr. Medvedko was not known for any other investigations.

"He had been properly noticed and had a mediocre rise," Mr. Lozowy said.

Mr. Yushchenko's nominee received essential support from the Party of the Regions of Ukraine faction, which gave him a majority of its votes.

Andrii Shkil, a member of Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, which cast only three votes for Mr. Medvedko, called him "a politically biased candidate."

"Do not complain when all cases will be investigated the same way as the Oleksandrov case," Mr. Shkil said to fellow national deputies on November 3.

Ironically, on the day of Mr. Medvedko's official introduction, November 8, his predecessor came to a hearing of the case Piskun v. Yushchenko at the Pechersk Court in Kyiv. Mr. Piskun had appealed to the court to cancel the president's decision to dismiss him from the procurator general's post.

Ukraine's Justice Minister Serhii Holovatyi represented the president during the hearing. Mr. Piskun said Mr. Holovatyi's role as Mr. Yushchenko's lawyer places pressure on the judge.

The court did not issue any ruling and postponed the hearing until November 18.

Mr. Yushchenko had sacked Mr. Piskun on October 14 without citing any reason, causing much speculation and accusations.

A few days later, a special commission closed the case opened by the Procurator General's Office against Petro Poroshenko, one of Mr. Yushchenko's allies, who was accused of bribing businessmen in order to gain control of a luxury, high-rise apartment in Kyiv. Mr. Medvedko was among the commission's members.

"This is almost like a public admission that the president was interested in putting a stop to investigations by the procurator of his allies, including his family and his wife," Mr. Lozowy said. "I mean suggestions made by Piskun that he was interested in looking at possibly opening up a case against Kateryna Chumachenko [Yushchenko]."

The Ukrainian Internet publication Svoboda reported on October 9 that Mrs. Yushchenko had ordered a $270,000 charter plane for her mother and friends so that they could attend her husband's inauguration. Dmytro Firtash, a Russian businessman, reportedly paid for the January 12 flight from Florida to Kyiv.

"There are a lot of indications that this presidency has more than lost its way. It's not just that it seems to be drifting - it seems to be sailing in the wrong direction," Mr. Lozowy noted.

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