Major Melnychenko denies United States cooperation

by Yaro Bihun

WASHINGTON - Major Mykola Melnychenko, whose secret taping of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma's office conversations erupted into a major government scandal, denied press reports that he has been cooperating with U.S. investigators about Ukrainian money-laundering activities in the United States.

Appearing at a news conference at the National Press Club on August 14, Major Melnychenko added that while he is more than willing to work with law enforcement agencies in fighting corruption wherever it occurs, this cooperation should be done through official Ukrainian channels, which would take into account the country's national interests.

The Wall Street Journal reported on August 10 that Major Melnychenko, who has received political asylum in the United States, was cooperating with the Justice Department, that his recordings were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in San Francisco that indicted former Ukrainian prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko on money-laundering charges, and that officials of the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have questioned him and listened to some of his tapes. Strangely, the report was filed by the Journal's correspondent in Almaty, Kazakstan.

"Personally, I have not given any materials to anyone, except to the committee," Major Melnychenko stressed, referring to the Verkhovna Rada interim committee charged with investigating the disappearance and presumed killing of journalist Heorhii Gongadze. On one of the recordings President Kuchma allegedly asks that the journalist be gotten rid of.

Also participating in the news conference was the deputy chairman of that committee, Viktor Shishkin, who said he was visiting the United States to clear up some factual matters with Major Melnychenko, and another member of the Verkhovna Rada, Oleksandr Yeliashkevych, who last year was attacked and severely beaten after he criticized the president publicly.

Mr. Shishkin stated that his committee views money-laundering as one of the illegal activities that those responsible for killing Mr. Gongadze wanted to keep from being exposed. He said the tapes also reveal that the president's circle of associates were making large sums of money from the illegal export of gas and weapons, and that some of that money went to finance President Kuchma's re-election campaign.

Mr. Yeliashkevych said that following his beating he is afraid for his life. Ukraine is gravely ill, suffering from what he called the "Kuchma virus" of massive high-level corruption.

"What I can say with certainty is that people associated with (President) Kuchma, indeed, laundered large sums of money," Major Melnychenko said, adding that there were also indications in the recorded conversations that some of the laundering was done in the United States.

Major Melnychenko said he doubted that President Kuchma would ever resign over the tape scandal, as some have called on him to do, because he knows that he and his associates would in short order "end up behind bars." But he was certain that sooner or later the president would be brought to account for the killing of Mr. Gongadze and his other crimes.

The slain journalist's wife, Myroslava Gongadze, was present at the news conference.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, August 19, 2001, No. 33, Vol. LXIX

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