US to Melnychenko: Give Us the Tapes

The US district court, of the Southern District of California has ruled, following a US Department of Justice suit, that Major Mykola Melnychenko, former Ukrainian presidential guard, transfer to the department all the tapes he recorded in the President of Ukraine’s office room, the Internet publication Ukrayinska pravda (www.pravda.com.ua) quotes Melnychenko as telling the New Jersey based weekly Svoboda. According to him, on January 16, 2002, Judge Susan Y. Illston handed down order CR01-0304 MISC Si obliging Mykola Melnychenko to give the US Department of Justice all the tapes he recorded in Leonid Kuchma’s office. “The Department of Justice representatives went to court because I have declined their repeated requests to give them the recorded tapes,” the former guard officer said, adding that he had opposed from the very outset handing over the tapes at the disposal of anybody “but the legitimate institutions of Ukraine because they carry information which contains state secrets of not only Ukraine but also such states as Britain, Germany, Spain, and Turkey.” In particular, he said, the tapes deal with “the arms trade, as well as other secret information: some aspects of relations with other states, reports of Cabinet of Ministers on the state of the Ukrainian economy, along with Ukraine’s gold and currency reserves.” The former major also said he viewed the California court ruling in a negative light. “Of course, I understand the judges were above all guided by US interests when they made this decision. Now I’ll try to find a way out of this situation,” he said.