Was Gongadze Issued a Czech Visa?

According to information on the site www.podrobnosti.com.ua (“Podrobnosti” {Details} is a program of Inter Television), reported on January 18 by some Ukrainian channels, the consular section of the Ukrainian Embassy in the Czech Republic has received, in reply to a request from Ukrainian law enforcement bodies, an official letter signed by Jaroslav Ji я rik, chief of the Czech police registration department. The letter says, in particular, that ninety day visas were issued in November 2000 to the following citizens of Ukraine: Heorhy Ruslanovych Gongadze (born May 21, 1969), Mykola Ivanovych Melnychenko (b. October 18, 1966), Liliya Vyacheslavivna Melnychenko (b. May 17, 1974), and Lesia Mykolayivna Melnychenko (b. November 30, 1996).

Simultaneously, the New Channel reported in its 7 p.m. news program that the information about visas issued to Melnychenko and Gongadze “was spread by Ukrainian law enforcement officers.” In response to a journalists’ query, the Czech Embassy said that this was confidential information which could only be furnished by request of Ukrainian official bodies.

Meanwhile, the Ukrayinska pravda on-line publication has pointed out that no patronymics are usually entered in our foreign-travel passports. Moreover, UP reports that Gongadze’s first name, written in Latin characters in the letter, differs from the way it was written in his passport.

However, Ihor Hrushko said, later in the day on January 18 the Ukrainian embassy’s consular department, when checking this information, received a letter from the Czech immigration authorities saying that the name of Heorhy Gongadze was mentioned by mistake. Conversely, Czech officials admit that the family of security officer Mykola Melnychenko did apply to the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Ukraine and was granted on November 21 a six-month entry visa valid from November 23, 2000 to May 23, 2001, Mr. Hrushko said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has forwarded the required information to law enforcement bodies in Ukraine.

Simultaneously, the Czech side released on January 19 the following statement, “The Embassy of the Czech Republic in Ukraine... affirms that in the period from June 28, 2000 (i.e., from the time the Czech Republic imposed a visa regime on Ukraine) until January 19, 2001, no one named Gongadze (or close to it) applied to the Consular Department of the Czech Embassy in Ukraine for a Czech visa, and thus the Czech Republic Embassy in Ukraine did not issue a visa to any person with such a surname.” (The document was signed by Ilona Indrova, press secretary at the Czech Embassy in Ukraine). Meanwhile, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine confirmed on January 18 that a search was conducted of the apartment of Mykola Rudkivsky, assistant to a people’s deputy and member of the Socialist Party political council as well as his brother Serhiy.

As Interfax-Ukraine learned at the Prosecutor General’s Office press center, an investigator in charge of very important cases ruled, with the consent of a deputy prosecutor-general, that a search be conducted in the Rudkivsky apartment.

The press center reported that while investigation is being carried out in the criminal case against Mykola Melnychenko charged with “spreading obviously false allegations which tarnish the reputation of others, as well as committing other major crimes, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has furnished materials which give us grounds to state that Serhiy and Mykola Rudkivsky possess objects and documents that can help find the truth in this case.”

Interfax-Ukraine also reports that Oleksandr Moroz said at a January 18 press conference that the search was conducted on the grounds of an SBU report that “Rudkivsky allegedly organizes the manufacture of counterfeit audio and video cassettes with the voices of the president and other officials. Information experts at the Ukrayinska pravda Internet publication suspect that the SBU received this information through ‘bugging,’ when they were incautiously discussing when and how to make public a new batch of Melnychenko’s recordings (! - Ed.).” People’s Deputy Serhiy Holovaty, as if trying to take the initiative from Mr. Moroz, said on January 19 he has some thus far undisclosed recordings of the president talking to Prosecutor General Mykhailo Potebenko, made “after the disappearance” of journalist Gongadze, which may shed light on something.” UNIAN reports that Mr. Holovaty said “there are a lot of recordings” and he would like to hand them over to the Gongadze inquiry commission so that the latter may decide whether to make them public.