High-Profile Cases Are Being Solved, Prosecutor General Claims
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Sviatoslav Piskun made a statement in Bishkek September 4 on solving and completing investigation of a number of high-profile criminal cases. “One of the cases arousing much attention, the murder of television journalist Heorhy Gongadze, is in fact solved. The persons who might have committed this murder are identified,” the Prosecutor General stated in his interview with Interfax. In his words, three persons are wanted in connection with this case. In the interests of the investigation their names are not being disclosed.
Investigation of another notorious case, the murder of journalist Ihor Aleksandrov, is also close to completion. “Yury Verediuk, earlier accused of this murder, was later released. However, the General Prosecutor’s Office ascertained that he did not commit the crime alone; the murderer had accessories. They are on the wanted list,” Prosecutor General said.
Recall that Verediuk, indicted by General Prosecutor’s Office for murdering TOR Television Company Director Ihor Aleksandrov, was later freed by the Donetsk Court of Appeal. Two months after the Donetsk Prosecutor’s Office appealed this decision, Yury Verediuk died of heart failure complicated by cardiac infarction. On July 25, 2002, the Supreme Court of Ukraine passed a decision to remit the Aleksandrov case for further investigation. The verdict of not guilty regarding Verediuk was overturned.
Mr. Piskun also spoke about investigation of the case of former State Security Major Mykola Melnychenko who has immigrated to the United States. “Ukraine’s General Prosecutor’s Office indicted him in absentia for official falsification and disclosure of state secrets,” the Prosecutor recalled. In his view, the Prosecutor’s Office has no objective evidence of the authenticity of the recordings made allegedly in President Kuchma’s office, since none of the expert examinations (except the FBI — Ed.) have verified them. The office has appointed an additional phono- psycho-linguistic examination. “This, according to our information, will be an examination unique not only in the CIS states but the world over, able to clarify whether the people whose voices are allegedly recorded could say the words that are recorded,” Mr. Piskun said. “This is important for the investigation to find out if the notorious record could be a sophisticated falsification.”
In his words, Ukraine’s General Prosecutor’s Office also completed investigation and sent to court part of criminal case of the administrators of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU), whose General Director in 1997- 1998 was current People’s Deputy Yuliya Tymoshenko. “Investigating episodes of the big criminal case regarding Ukraine’s former Premier Pavlo Lazarenko is also completed. The issue in question is the transfer of multimillion dollar sums by UESU leaders to Lazarenko’s accounts abroad,” the Prosecutor General claimed. He recalled that the General Prosecutor’s Office turned to Verkhovna Rada with a request for consent to bring former UESU director and present People’s Deputy Yuliya Tymoshenko to criminal responsibility. “Thus we will be able to dot the i’s in this important criminal case,” he said. “The Lazarenko case is under investigation in a number of countries, the US included. However, the fact that we can’t bring Mrs. Tymoshenko to criminal responsibility impedes the investigation.”
Former Premier Lazarenko has been under arrest in the US already for four years. A Swiss court has convicted him to eighteen years imprisonment for money laundering. “Last summer, after Lazarenko was arrested in the US, we revealed the last episode connected with laundering in July 1999 in Liechtenstein $34 million obtained by Lazarenko from the UESU,” Mr. Piskun stated.
