Vienna hospital officials say press release refuting Yushchenko poisoning was a forgery (10/10/04)

Vienna hospital officials say press release refuting Yushchenko poisoning was a forgery

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Officials of the Rudolfinerhaus medical clinic released a statement on October 3 denying that they had ever suggested that presidential candidate and Our Ukraine political bloc leader Viktor Yushchenko was not poisoned. They identified as a forgery a press release issued earlier on their behalf in which such conclusions were publicized. The statement was issued several days after Mr. Yushchenko checked back into the hospital for further treatment.

Signed by Dr. Michael Zimpfer, the hospital's president, and Dr. Lothar Wicke, its managing director and chief physician, the statement refuted information found in a press release that was extensively distributed on September 28 to nearly all mass media outlets in Ukraine and abroad just after a press conference had taken place at the hospital. The press release led many of the world's largest newspapers, including the BBC and The New York Times, to conclude improperly that Mr. Yushchenko had deceived the Ukrainian public.

"Poisoning Assertion Rejected," was how The New York Times headlined the story it ran on September 29 based on the information it had received from the Reuters News Agency - information that turned out to be false.

"With regard to the latest symptoms of his illness and the poisoning that may have caused it, I want to make the following statement as a supplement and qualification to the press release of September 28, 2004, which was not signed or authorized by me and which could have been interpreted to state that poisoning had been excluded a priori," read the statement that Dr. Zimpfer of Rudolfinerhaus issued on October 3.

It went on: "Presently we are investigating the possibility of an external cause of poisoning. It is impossible at the moment to either confirm or deny whether it was intentional or unintentional. The press release of September 28, 2004, according to which poisoning could be excluded is wrong and is refuted by this report," explained the statement.

It emphasized that only Dr. Zimpfer or Dr. Mykola Korpan, Mr. Yushchenko's attending physician, who is Ukrainian, were authorized to talk about the state of Mr. Yushchenko's health and his treatment, and only with the lawmaker's permission.

Speaking with the press on October 4, Dr. Korpan revealed that in the last week his Kyiv apartment had been searched and his neighbors questioned by Ukrainian law enforcement officials.

Meanwhile Reuters, the London-based news agency, which had aggressively distributed a news story based on the falsified press release that was picked up by many of the world's largest and most prestigious newspapers, officially admitted its error. Reuters officials said on October 4 that they had traced the source of the faxed statement, which they admitted had not been signed by any Rudolfinerhaus official, to a German telephone number held by a person identified as Markus Reugamer. Rudolfinerhaus officials said that Mr. Reugamer had no ties of any sort to the Viennese clinic.

Mr. Yushchenko's campaign manager, Oleksander Zinchenko, said on October 4 that his team had traced the distribution of the falsified press release to TriMedia, a Russian-based public relations firm.

Mr. Zinchenko also noted that "an unprecedented number of officials from the State Security Services, the Procurator General's Office and Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine had descended on Vienna to begin their own investigations."

Procurator General Hennadii Vasyliev was one of those who traveled to Vienna to meet with Austrian officials and with Mr. Yushchenko. He returned to Kyiv having accomplished only half of his mission after the presidential candidate decided not to meet him. Mr. Yushchenko explained for the newspaper Moloda Ukraina that he did not trust the chief prosecutor of Ukraine and did not want to cooperate with him. Mr. Vasyliev belongs to Prime Minister Yanukovych's Regions of Ukraine Party.

Upon his return Mr. Vasyliev created another sensation when he told reporters that the car in which he had driven around Vienna had been followed. On October 5 Channel 5 television news acknowledged that one of its reporters had indeed tailed the automobile in which Ukraine's chief law enforcement official had traveled while in Vienna, but only because the reporter was trying to chase him down for an interview.

Another Ukrainian politician, National Deputy Serhii Shevchuk, a member of the parliamentary ad hoc commission investigating the poisoning of Mr. Yushchenko and whose National Democratic Party supports the candidacy of Prime Minister Yanukovych, said that it was his understanding after meeting with doctors at Rudolfinerhaus that they were now theorizing that Mr. Yushchenko was poisoned by an acute viral infection, reported Interfax-Ukraine.

Mr. Shevchuk's comments contradicted a statement made by Dr. Korpan, Mr. Yushchenko's attending physician, made on September 20 in which he had underscored that while a viral condition could not be excluded, Mr. Yushchenko's "atypical condition" made doctors inclined to doubt that a virus could singularly affect so many varied organs of the body.

Mr. Yushchenko remained hospitalized at Rudolfinerhaus on October 7, having checked himself back in on September 30 after his condition had not improved as had been expected. While a patient at the hospital, Mr. Yushchenko gave hair and skin samples, which were to be used by the hospital to conduct forensic analyses to determine what specifically had poisoned the leading presidential contender sometime before or on September 5, the day he fell ill after having dinner with Security Service of Ukraine Chief Ihor Smeshko.

Mr. Yushchenko was flown to Vienna and admitted to Rudolfinerhaus on September 9 after his condition steadily deteriorated. Results of the tissue analyses are expected sometime during the week of October 11.

[Our Ukraine National Deputy Viktor Pynzenyk stated on October 7 that the Verkhovna Rada parliamentary ad hoc commission that morning had received a copy of the preliminary report of the analyses done on Mr. Yushchenko by Rudolfinerhaus, which he suggested should be presented to the legislative body after review and consideration by the committee members.]

Meanwhile, on October 4, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych who continued to trail Mr. Yushchenko in most pre-election polling, said that he would not take part in scheduled debates among the presidential candidates. Mr. Yanukovych explained that due to the large number of registered candidates, there was no way that the debates would give all the candidates an equal opportunity to present their positions on the issues. He agreed, however, to take part in a debate, should he make it to a run-off vote.

Mr. Yushchenko's campaign team responded to the news from Mr. Yanukovych by declining to take part in the debates unless the prime minister was present. Socialist Party Chairman Oleksander Moroz, who finds himself in the fourth spot in pre-election ratings, followed suit on May 5.

With the withdrawal of Green Party candidate Vitalii Kononov, as of October 7, 23 candidates remained registered for the October 31 presidential election.

The latest election poll of the Democratic Initiatives Fund, released on October 6, put Mr. Yushchenko at the head of the pack of 23 candidates, with support from 34.7 percent of the Ukrainian electorate. Prime Minister Yanukovych continued to be in second place with 29.8 percent of those polled supporting his run for the presidency, Notably, he has recently closed the margin between himself and the leader to 4.9 percent.

Petro Symonenko, the Communist candidate surpassed Mr. Moroz for the first time to assume third place, with a 6.1 percent rating. Mr. Moroz fell to fourth position with 5.5 percent support. Natalia Vitrenko was the only other candidate to manage more than 1 percent in the survey.

In a run-off between Mr. Yushchenko and Mr. Yanukovych, should those two men make it to the second round of the election process, Mr. Yushchenko would win by 43.6 percent to 38.2 percent, according to the Democratic Initiatives poll. Perhaps most importantly, with three weeks to go to the first round of voting, 9.7 percent of the electorate was still undecided. The poll, which was taken at the beginning of October, encompassed a representative sample from all oblasts of Ukraine. It had a margin of error of 2.2 percent.

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