New controversy surrounds Kuchma: charges of illegal arms sales to Iraq (04/21/02)

New controversy surrounds Kuchma: charges of illegal arms sales to Iraq

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma may have become the focus of another controversy as a result of recordings made in his office, this one on illegal arms sales to Iraq.

Charges of black market arms sales by Ukrainian officials have been floated in Ukraine's tainted press for months with fingers being pointed at various Ukrainian military officials, as well as former Security Service of Ukraine directors Yevhen Marchuk and Leonid Derkach. Much of that was considered pre-election mudslinging in a particularly dirty parliamentary race, as well as the aftereffects of a trial in Italy of renowned illegal arms dealer Leonid Minin, a rich Odesa political power broker before he moved on to other projects.

Now, however, a former national deputy and high-ranking intelligence service officer has leveled charges that Mr. Kuchma illegally sold radar stystems to Baghdad.

Oleksander Zhyr, who failed to get re-elected to the Verkhovna Rada and is contesting the results amid charges of vote fraud, said at a press conference on April 18 that a company in the United States had verified the authenticity of digital recordings in which President Kuchma is allegedly authorizing the sale of three Kolchuha radar installations to Iraq. The announcement came just over a month after Mr. Zhyr had indicated that he had information that proved the Ukrainian president had taken part in $100 million transaction involving radar systems for the Arab country at a time when all military sales are banned by a United Nations embargo.

Mr. Zhyr's initial revelation was discounted to some degree because it seemed to be campaign rhetoric at a time when election races were in full swing and smear tactics were not unusual. Nearly three weeks after the end of the elections, Mr. Zhyr maintained his charges and announced that the U.S. firm, Back Tech, had confirmed that the recordings were authentic and excluded the possibility that they were snippets of unrelated conversations.

In them President Kuchma allegedly discusses the arms sale to Iraq with Valerii Malev, the head of Ukrspetsexport, the arms export agency of the Ukrainian government. Mr. Malev died in an automobile crash on March 6, just days before Mr. Zhyr's initial announcement.

"President Kuchma personally approved the sale and it is documented in the conversation with Malev," said Mr. Zhyr during a press conference.

The former KGB and Security Service of Ukraine officer added that Mr. Kuchma was told that recordings of his discussions with Mr. Malev existed four days prior to the death of his arms export chief. Mr. Zhyr has said that Mr. Malev's death should be investigated as an assassination.

"The president knew that I wouldn't conceal this information," said Mr. Zhyr, who headed the parliamentary ad hoc committee investigating the disappearance and death of journalist Heorhii Gongadze, and has been a vocal opponent of President Kuchma for several years.

The digital recordings that Mr. Zhyr said implicate Mr. Kuchma in the illegal arms transaction are the same ones that are at the center of the scandal surrounding the case of Mr. Gongadze, whose beheaded body was found buried in a shallow grave in a wooded area outside Kyiv two months after his disappearance. Maj. Mykola Melnychenko, a presidential bodyguard who was given political asylum in the United States after they became public, made both recordings. On April 12 Mr. Melnychenko revealed the latest conversations found on the recordings to a U.S. grand jury in San Francisco investigating Ukraine's involvement in illegal arms sales to Iraq, reported Interfax-Ukraine, citing a Deutsche Welle report.

Mr. Melnychenko reportedly told the German news agency that during the same grand jury inquiry a CIA officer testified that Ukrainian-made radar installations were recently found in Iraq.

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual told an audience of students at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy on April 11 that while Washington is making every effort to clarify the situation, he could not comment on whether the United States has any data in its possession confirming that Ukraine shipped any type of military equipment to Iraq. He said, however, that the charges are serious.

Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied to the allegations in uncompromising fashion on April 16, stating that there can be no connection between Ukraine and illegal arms sales.

"Ukraine has not sold, is not selling and does not plan to sell any weapons to Iraq," said MFA spokesman Serhii Borodinkov, who added that this includes sales of an illegal sort as well.

Yurii Riabkin, director of the Donetsk Topaz Works, which manufactures the tracking systems, told the BBC on April 17 that it was impossible for the radar installations to have been sold to Iraq, according to Interfax-Ukraine. He said that his firm has produced a total of four Kolchuhas, with only one sold to a foreign country, which was Ethiopia. He explained that his company repairs all the systems, so it knows where they are stationed. Four other systems are currently being produced for China, said the plant director.

Mr. Riabkin also noted that each system costs $5 million, so a $100 million price tag for three of them would be absurd. He said that, in his opinion, even if the head of Ukrspetsexport and the president of Ukraine were on record as discussing arms sales to Iraq, it was not grounds to charge Mr. Kuchma with an illegal act.

"They could talk of anything, but that does not mean that there were results," said Mr. Riabkin.

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