President Kuchma Should Stand Trial

Summing up the commission's findings, he told his fellow lawmakers that Oleksandr, son of Ukraine's previous President Leonid Kravchuk had opened exchange accounts with a number of foreign banks and submitted other evidence about sizable remittances to these accounts and other cases of what he said was embezzlement of Ukraine's foreign currency stock. Mr. Omelchenko stressed that this information should be considered as a due response to the "offended" Social Democratic faction accusing him of abuse of office and casting aspersions on "number one Social Democrat" Leonid Kravchuk.

Incidentally, the ex-President and another prime suspect in the Blasco case, People's Deputy Yukhym Zviahilsky, had left the audience before they could hear the accusations. And had the current President been in attendance, he would have followed suit for Hryhory Omelchenko submitted directives signed Premier Kuchma, ordering his subordinates to carry out illegitimate financial operations transferring amounts in foreign currency from Ukraine to foreign companies' bank accounts. When queried by fellow legislators, Mr. Omelchenko admitted that he had until recently trusted Leonid Kuchma and personally reported to the President on the progress in his investigation, and that his findings would then be shelved more often than not. On one such occasion SBU Colonel Omelchenko found an excuse to stay in the President's office after an audience. Exactly seven minutes later he saw the ranking bureaucrats incriminated in his report being summoned to the Chief Executive.

Later, talking to journalists in the lobby, Mr. Omelchenko said that the sole purpose of his investigation was to make both Ukrainian Presidents face justice. If they did not, he believed that the Romanian scenario would be played out in Ukraine. Personally, however, he thought the South Korean scenario was the most likely, considering the indictment of that country's two ex-presidents.