Freedom Party Statement on the May 22 “Zakryta Zona” Program Aired on Channel 5

On May 22 and 23, 2005, Ukraine’s Channel 5 Television aired Volodymyr Aryev’s feature entitled “Target: Ukraine. Part II,” part of his ongoing “Journalistic Investigation: Who Ordered the Killing?” covered in his prime-time program “Zakryta Zona” [Restricted Area]. Once again Aryev has framed a hypothesis based on misleading and provocative information about the alleged ties between Honcharov, the former ringleader of the so-called Werewolves Gang, and Yevhen Marchuk. The leader of the Freedom Party has repeatedly refuted these allegations as lame fabrications designed to discredit him. However, Mr. Aryev seems to consider it irrelevant to cite or at least mention these refutations in his program, as required by the universal code of journalistic ethics.

Mr. Aryev cannot be suspected of unprofessionalism. Mr. Aryev is fully aware of Yevhen Marchuk’s position on the attempts to implicate him in Honcharov’s Werewolves Gang, because in his April 22, 2004, program “Zakryta Zona”/”Znyklyi Kontynent” [Vanished Continent] Radio Continent president Serhiy Sholokh and journalist Volodymyr Boiko revealed to Mr. Aryev who plotted the defamation of Yevhen Marchuk by implicating him in the Gongadze case. In other words, the authors of “Zakryta Zona” know about the attempts to derail the investigation into the Gongadze case. However, for some reason Mr. Aryev, who has donned the role of investigative journalist, decided to turn a blind eye to this information. Why? To make matters worse, this is the second time he has tried to link the Werewolves Gang (“Zakryta Zona” of September 17, 2004) to Yevhen Marchuk. Alarmingly, the “testimony” of criminals, who stained their hands with the blood of innocent people and are prepared to say anything on command just to save their skins, has been made public, while the testimony of fellow journalists, who barely avoided being drawn into a large-scale provocation, has been kept secret. Why?

Why haven’t the program’s producers bothered to find out who visited Honcharov in custody and had him write the “confessions”, which the masterminds of this large-scale campaign needed to mislead the investigation. Who needed to eliminate Honcharov after he wrote the necessary “confessions”? After all, the way these “confessions” have been brought into evidence is a subject for a separate journalistic investigation.

It was strange that the producers stated that “former National Defense and Security Council chairman Yevhen Marchuk...initially promised to tell the whole story, but later didn’t return calls.” Meanwhile, they managed not only to get a former Russian FSB officer on the phone and air his interview in their December 23, 2004, program, but also record the testimony of Yuriy Nesterov, a witness in the Werewolves Gang case, who has been kept under tight wraps for some time. After all, an information leak about the whereabouts of such a star witness entails criminal liability. We all remember how a similar leak once nearly had this witness killed. While the producers have thus managed to skirt procedural obstacles and interview Nesterov (this alone should be the subject of a criminal investigation, let alone a journalistic expose), they claim they have been unable to locate Yevhen Marchuk, who has been receiving treatment in a Kyiv hospital for the past three months. The Freedom Party has not received any official inquiries into this matter either.

On the other hand, if the producers of “Zakryta Zona” consider it admissible to ignore Yevhen Marchuk’s repeated refutations of the allegations of his ties to Honcharov, can we expect them to adequately reflect Yevhen Marchuk’s position if he had returned the call that they claim to have made?

Since Channel 5 Television has now twice attempted to link Honcharov, the former ringleader of the Werewolves Gang, with Freedom Party Leader Yevhen Marchuk, the Freedom Party press service appeals to the channel’s declared concept of “honest news making” and demands that the Channel 5 management bring this statement to the viewers’ attention.