Turning the pages back... September 8, 2002 (09/05/04)

Turning the pages back...

September 8, 2002

On September 8, 2002, Roman Woronowycz of The Weekly's Kyiv Press Bureau reported on the latest sobering news in Heorhii Gongadze's disappearance: "Procurator General Sviatoslav Piskun announced on September 3 ... that a panel of medical experts who had reviewed all the evidence gathered in regards to the corpse, which was discovered in a shallow grave on November 16, 2000, two months after Mr. Gongadze disappeared, had concluded that there is no question that it belongs to the late journalist. ... He also noted that, contrary to earlier statements, the experts determined that the cause of the death was the decapitation of the body. The earlier report had indicated that the head had been severed after the person had expired."

Mr. Piskun "also said that while reviewing the work of investigators done under his predecessor, Mykhailo Potebenko, his investigative team found major flaws and errors, and discovered additional evidence at the site of the unearthed burial site, which had been overlooked for two years." Mr. Woronowycz wrote that the Procurator General's Office, "had arrested the Tarascha county prosecutor for failing to perform his duties and covering up evidence in the case."

But the discovery of Gongadze's corpse was only half the story. Mr. Woronowycz reported:

"As the fate of the Tarascha body, apparently, was finally decided, National Deputy [Hryhorii] Omelchenko, the chair of the ad hoc parliamentary committee on the Gongadze affair, announced that he had forwarded recommendations made by the committee to bring criminal charges against President [Leonid] Kuchma and several political cohorts, including Volodymyr Lytvyn, his former chief of staff, today the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada; the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine Leonid Derkach; former Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Kravchenko; and current Tax Administration Chairman Mykola Azarov. In one of the documents, the officials are accused of 'collaborating to organize the kidnapping of Heorhii Gongadze, which led to fatal consequences.' "

"The evidence that Mr. Omelchenko submitted is based largely on the Melnychenko tapes, digital recordings made by Maj. Mykola Melnychenko during the first nine months of 2000 when he worked in the security detachment assigned to the presidential offices. The recordings allegedly contain scores of hours of conversations between President Kuchma and the various parties named in the parliamentary committee report."

Source: "Top prosecutor concludes Tarascha corpse is Gongadze: Parliamentary committee seeks charges against Kuchma and associates," by Roman Woronowycz, The Ukrainian Weekly, September 8, 2002, Vol. LXX, No. 36.

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