DNA testing shows corpse is probably that of Gongadze (01/14/01)

DNA testing shows corpse is probably that of Gongadze

by Yarema A. Bachynsky
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - Addressing Parliament on January 10, Procurator General of Ukraine Mykhailo Potebenko said there is a 99.6 percent probability that the beheaded corpse unearthed on November 2, 2000, in the town of Tarascha is in fact the body of missing journalist Heorhii Gongadze. Speaking before a full house of national deputies and journalists, Mr. Potebenko summarized his version of the investigation into Mr. Gongadze's disappearance and accusations by a former member of President Leonid Kuchma's security detail that Mr. Kuchma had ordered the persecution of Mr. Gongadze and other perceived enemies.

During his parliamentary presentation, repleat with medical and scientific terminology that at times made it difficult to understand the essence of the matter at hand, Mr. Potebenko stated that mitochondrial DNA taken from the corpse coincided with Mr. Gongadze's genetic profile. Mr. Potebenko, citing heavily and often reading directly from a report prepared by the Central Forensic Examination Bureau of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, stated that the Tarascha corpse was that of a male between 30 and 39 years of age and between 177 and 184 centimeters in height. He further noted that the right forearm and hand of the corpse bore the markings of a wound caused by metal fragments. Mr. Gongadze had suffered a shrapnel wound to his right forearm and hand while participating in armed conflict in Georgia's separatist Abkhazia region in 1993.

Mr. Potebenko said the head of the corpse had been severed by an axe-type instrument, adding that the cause of death had not been determined. He also refuted previous statements made soon after the discovery Tarascha corpse, which had described the body as having been purposely "treated" with some manner of chemicals to make visual identification impossible. "Weather conditions were to blame [for the condition of the corpse]," said Mr. Potebenko.

Mr. Potebenko said the body would not be released for burial at this time, in order to avoid "a situation, in which Mr. Gongadze reappears, alive. How will I then explain the situation?" said the procurator general.

Moreover, according to Mr. Potebenko, the Gongadze matter would require extensive inquiries before any conclusion could be reached. Mr. Potebenko did not elaborate further on this point, and his insistence that it would be premature to jump to conclusions regarding the Tarascha body contradicted comments made by President Leonid Kuchma, who said at a press conference in Kryvyi Rih that day that he believes the body to be that of the missing journalist.

Lesia Gongadze, mother of the missing journalist, on January 9 filed a lawsuit against the Procurator General's Office, demanding that Mr. Potebenko be removed from the Gongadze case due to his incompetent handling of the matter and refusal to provide timely information on progress made since the journalist's disappearance on September 16, 2000. The elderly Mrs. Gongadze, who, along with Mr. Gongadze's wife, Myroslava, first learned of the positive DNA identification of the Tarascha corpse during Mr. Potebenko's presentation in Parliament, was being treated for stress and heart problems following the revelations according to an evening news program aired the same evening.

In comments published by Den newspaper on January 11, the journalist's wife said that it is time to accept the results of the official DNA analysis as a fact and that she would likely demand the release of her husband's body for burial following a meeting planned for that day with Mr. Potebenko. After the body has been identified, said Myroslava Gongadze, a crime will have been established as having been committed, and it will be time to find those responsible and connected with this matter.

During his appearance in Parliament and at the subsequent press conference at the Procurator Generals Office on January 10, Mr. Potebenko said he was certain the recordings made by former presidential bodyguard Maj. Mykola Melnychenko and made public by National Deputy Oleksander Moroz were forgeries.

"The tapes are a falsification. I say this categorically," said Mr. Potebenko. Accordingly, his office has closed the criminal case in the matter of the Melnychenko tapes and has opened a criminal case against Maj. Melnychenko for criminal slander, improperly obtaining a foreign travel passport and other charges. An order for his arrest has been issued and a request for assistance has been sent to Interpol, according to the procurator general.

Mr. Potebenko also noted that investigators had not yet established who was financing Maj. Melnychenko and who had masterminded the recordings of conversations in which voices allegedly belonging to President Kuchma and two senior government officials discuss reprisals against Mr. Kuchma's political and journalistic opponents. He also announced that the former bodyguard's daughter was very ill and that Maj. Melnychenko had in effect become a hired gun in the scandal in exchange for monetary consideration to pay for his daughter's medical treatment. The procurator general did not further explain this theory.

National deputies had differing opinions as to Mr. Potebenko's report in Parliament. Borys Bezpalyi, a member of the Reforms-Congress fraction that has called for the dismissal of Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Kravchenko and other top officials in the wake of the Gongadze scandal, was harshly critical of Mr. Potebenko for "spending one and a half hours talking about anything and everything but the essence of the matter." Mr. Bezpalyi said it was unlikely that the Parliament would approve the dismissal of Mr. Potebenko in the days ahead because "deputies would be worked over" prior to a no-confidence vote.

Socialist Party of Ukraine leader and former Parliament chairman Oleksander Moroz, who first made public the Melnychenko tapes, said it was quite telling that, "despite all their efforts, the procurators could not disprove the results of the [DNA] examination conducted in Moscow [by forensic specialists whose record included identification of the remains of the last Russian tsar and his family]."

As for Mr. Potebenko's assertions the Melnychenko tapes were fabricated, Mr. Moroz said that the examinations conducted in Ukraine did not prove this but merely concluded that it was not possible to confirm the authenticity of the tapes and voices on the basis of the copies examined.

Head of the Communist Party of Ukraine faction Petro Symonenko said in local media that the Procurator General had given the Parliament concrete information and that it was now necessary for the investigation to proceed to a full and logical conclusion. Mr. Symonenko indicated that the Communists would not vote for Mr. Potebenko's dismissal while an investigation was ongoing, although he did criticize the latter for jumping to political conclusions about the Melnychenko tapes and the Gongadze matter.

On January 10 a procedural vote to subject Mr. Potebenko to deputies' questions following his presentation failed to gain the 226 votes necessary for its adoption. It was put to a vote four times, with the tally at 222 on the third and fourth attempts and accusations of procedural shenanigans running rife throughout the Parliament corridors. The following day Parliament approved a conditional vote of no confidence in Mr. Potebenko; attempts to oust him that day failed because the Communist Party faction and pro-presidential factions abstained from voting on them. The procurator general was ordered to deliver an official report on the Gongadze matter sometime in February, after which Parliament may vote on whether or not to dismiss Mr. Potebenko.

At press time, The Ukrainian Weekly received word that Procurator General Potebenko had agreed to release Mr. Gongadze's body to his family in the next two or three days, according to Ukrayinska Pravda, the Internet newspaper Mr. Gongadze headed prior to his disappearance and (now apparently confirmed) death. Mr. Potebenko said that the release of the body would depend on identification by Mr. Gongadze's mother and the subsequent issuance of a death certificate. While speaking with the press earlier on, Mrs. Gongadze had indicated that any burial of her son would take place in Lviv.

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