TOP.net

The Day is launching a new column called “Top.net,” a sort of ratings list of the most sensational articles from online publications. Many of our readers do not have access to the Web. According to the latest polls, approximately 10% of Ukrainians have Internet access. Most users surf this diversified space not for alternative information but entertainment: to read jokes, listen to music, chat, etc. On the other hand, Ukrainian online media are filling quite a curious niche. In fact they exist illegally or, in other words, there are no laws on the books in Ukraine governing online media, so you cannot, say, sue them for libel or for sullying your honor and dignity. That is why this sphere of the informational space is often used for spreading all kinds of rumors and downright lies, fanning scandals, and engaging in character assassination. At the same time, online publications often carry materials that the “law-abiding” print media cannot afford to publish because they not only have different technological cycles but also radically different degrees of responsibility in comparison to their Internet counterparts.

Today, we offer our readers the first article from our new column.

In all probability, had the recordings made in President Leonid Kuchma’s office in 1999-2000 not been made public, the death of the little known (at the time) journalist Heorhiy Gongadze would not have caused a political ripple effect throughout the world.

If the world only heard the fragments where Kuchma, in his inimitable lexical style, was ordering that the journalist be taught a lesson, taken to the woods, or snatched by Chechens in a simulated kidnapping, it would be possible to whitewash the former Guarantor of the Constitution by attributing the murder to the gung-ho Interior Minister Kravchenko and the perpetrators — after all, the Melnychenko tapes never show Kuchma ordering anybody to kill Gongadze. But the runaway presidential bodyguard put into circulation dozens of hour-long recordings of conversations in the presidential office, in which Kuchma issues criminal orders almost every five minutes: to hang (in jest) judges, imprison (in earnest) Sloviansky Bank vice-president Borys Feldman, rig the elections, stifle the independent press, etc. Each of these “orders” is punishable by a 5-12-year prison term under Article 165 (abuse of office) or 166 (exceeding the powers of office) of Ukraine’s Criminal Code adopted in 1960 and still in force at the moment the recordings were made.

Since Gongadze discovered that he was being shadowed shortly before his disappearance and Yeltsov identified the plainclothesmen a few months after the journalist’s death, it was no longer possible to exonerate Kuchma from complicity in the murder without leveling a charge against the former Minister of Interior Affairs. But laying the blame at Kravchenko’s door could not by itself save Kuchma from possible arrest after his retirement because the Melnychenko tapes revealed other, no less outrageous, episodes. That is why Kuchma assigned a major task to all his “crisis managers” and top law-enforcement brass during the entire “Tapegate:” discredit the recordings at any cost in the public eye.

It has now been proved that the recordings of the conversations between Kuchma and his “courtiers,” made public first by Oleksandr Moroz and then by Major Melnychenko, are authentic. It is also a proven fact that what Melnychenko has said about his role in bugging the Guarantor’s office is a brazen lie. There was neither a heroic “lone wolf” major nor a tape recorder under the sofa: the recordings were made by a group of presidential security officers with the aid of stationary equipment installed in the former office of Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, on the first floor of a building in what is now Bankova Street.

Nor is it a secret that, by the time Gongadze disappeared, Kuchma was the only one who was unaware that all his conversations were being tape-recorded. At any rate, these tapes were more than once offered to Ukrainian politicians at a very fair price as early as the summer of 2000, and in August 2000 a certain “group of sports buffs” heatedly discussed some details of the recorded conversations at the Dynamo soccer club’s training base. The only thing still to be clarified is when the Russian secret services also got involved in the “tape scandal” — when the bugs were installed or later, after the journalist was killed. At any rate, the Russian embassy in Kyiv knew as early as September 2000 that Ukraine was in for political turmoil (shortly before the “tape scandal,” a top embassy official spilled the beans to a good friend of this writer’s during a conversation over dinner).

Russia’s Federal Security Service really came into the picture last summer, when Kuchma’s chief bodyguard Liashko and his PA Liovochkin, Jr. tried unsuccessfully to talk Melnychenko into selling them all the audio tapes. Nor is it a secret that after this, it was Moscow, not Kyiv, that tried to find a key to the major’s heart via Melnychenko’s inseparable sidekick Oleksandr Yelyashkevych. Yelyashkevych finally had to publicly admit his frequent trips to Russia’s capital at a press conference, while journalists have long been flourishing a photo of Melnychenko against the background of Red Square. What is more, the major has never denied having negotiated the further destiny of his recordings with an FSB deputy chief, whereas it is simply impossible for a person who enjoys refugee status in the US to make secret visits to other countries.

Since Melnychenko was not deported from Russia to Ukraine and his visit to Moscow coincided with that of Viktor Medvedchuk (this secret visit of the Presidential Administration chief to the neighboring state raised many an oppositional journalists’ eyebrows), one can conclude that the talks were successful and that the version that “Kravchenko is a murderer and the tapes are fake” was about to be spread. Then, quite accidentally, the major could have found new recordings in his collection, made after Gongadze’s disappearance, in which an individual sounding very much like Kuchma urges a person sounding very much like Kravchenko to make an all-out effort to trace the journalist. To save the major’s face and declare some tape details as a set-up, it was enough to cause Melnychenko to say that he had acted under orders from a certain Ukrainian politician, for example, Oleksandr Moroz or Yevhen Marchuk, and that he had not listened to the recordings but had only been giving them every day to his “client,” who edited them without the perpetrator’s knowledge.

The attempt to finally whitewash Kuchma was nearly foiled by the Orange Revolution, when the public was up in arms over the rigged presidential election results on November 21, 2004. Yet, as early as November 23, Viktor Yushchenko, scared by the unheard-of protest actions in Ukraine, phoned President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland and asked him to help find Kuchma and mediate in the talks. From the grandstands on Independence Square declarations were made that the bandits would be put in prison, but after the passionate speeches the leaders of the “revolution” rushed to bargain with Kuchma about the conditions of transferring power to Yushchenko. Kuchma laid down three conditions: political reform, reinstatement of Sviatoslav Piskun as prosecutor-general, and guarantees of personal safety.

However, Yushchenko is now denying his participation in that bargaining, which is the gospel truth. The current President of Ukraine is not one of those people whom serious politicians can view as negotiating partners and individuals who will keep their word. So it would be a good idea if another person, such as current Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Petro Poroshenko, revealed the details of those talks. It would also be good if Mr. Poroshenko told the intrigued public why he, Mykola Azarov, Sviatoslav Piskun, and Oleksandr Omelchenko held an informal banquet on December 10, 2004, without even noticing that representatives of the third oldest profession were photographing him in the restaurant. In the end, after securing all the guarantees on December 13, 2004, Kuchma ordered placing Kravchenko under surveillance, which in fact left the ex-minister no earthly chances of survival.

FOR THEY ARE “PROFESSIONALS”

Had President Yushchenko seen a 9 mm Beretta-M92 army pistol at least once in his lifetime, he would have thought twice about announcing on March 4, 2005, a few hours after Kravchenko’s death, that the former interior minister had committed suicide. When this kind of pistol fires, the recoil throws the hand far to the side, whereas Kravchenko was found in his garage with two gunshot wounds to the head, sitting on a chair with his hands hanging down between his slightly spread legs. The pistol — with no traces of blood — was lying upright on the floor, leaning against a chair leg.

Can an individual shoot himself twice in the head without outside help? It all depends on the weapon. At first, when it was reported that a small-caliber pistol was found near Kravchenko, the suicide version, although a bit far-fetched, did not contradict the laws of nature. However, a few days later, when journalists established that the shots had been fired by an army Beretta, the situation became as tangled as it could be.

The first bullet hit Kravchenko in the chin and went through the naso-labial crease, shattering a third of his upper jaw and crushing his lower teeth. Is a human being capable of well coordinated movements after such an injury, in a state of pain and shock? This is a question for President Yushchenko. We suggest that he carry out this experiment. Let him fall on his head onto asphalt; he will see that a person instantly loses consciousness as the result of a cerebral concussion. In this case, however, it was not just a fall but the colossal impact of a blunt-tipped bullet that leaves the muzzle at a speed of 320 m/s (almost the velocity of sound traveling through air) and, owing to its shape, directs its entire thrust into the target. But the most terrible thing for the victim is not so much the bullet itself as the kinetic energy of the gunpowder gases that come into the bore when a pistol is being fired at pointblank range. As the speed of Beretta-M92 bore gases exceeds 1000 m/s, a hit into any part of the head would not just cause immediate loss of consciousness but produce a fatal wound.

It is also significant that the first shot was made when the deceased’s head was thrown as far back as possible — otherwise, the bullet would have come out through the top of the head. A question to Mr. Yushchenko, who likes commenting in public on criminal proceedings: did Kravchenko throw his head back on his own or was somebody standing behind him holding him by the hair? It is also unclear how Kravchenko, who had his front cranial bones broken and was unconscious due to pain and shock and a tremendous brain concussion, managed to point the gun to his right temple and fire off a second shot.

One more question: Could Kravchenko’s body remain sitting on the chair? In any case, even after firing much smaller-caliber pistols, suicides are usually pushed up by the energy of the bullet and the bore gases, and then fall backwards due to loss of equilibrium.

It is also a pity that Yushchenko, who tried to persuade the public that Kravchenko shot himself, did not mention whether there were traces of gunshot residue on the deceased’s head. If these traces were there, why did none of the law enforcement officers, who were willingly commenting on what caused the ex-minister’s death, say even a single word about this? If there was no such residue, this meant that the shot, at least the second one (the first one was inflicted on the soft tissues, where it is difficult to identify explosive gas residue), was fired at a distance of no less than 40 cm.

The only evidence in favor of the suicide version is Kravchenko’s suicide note that was made public as late as on the second day after the tragedy. It was first alleged that the note was found in the deceased’s pocket; then it turned out that his clothing didn’t have any pockets; then law enforcement officers said they found the note on the deceased’s body inside his underwear.

Now let us picture the last hour in the former minister’s life in the version being circulated by Mr. Yushchenko and his team: Kravchenko is going to visit the Prosecutor-General’s Office on March 4, 2005, at 10 a.m., because two days earlier he saw on television that he was allegedly being summoned there (Kravchenko’s assistant and his wife both claim that there was no such summons — only a TV announcement). He calls in a staff car for 9 a.m. but for some reason writes a suicide note before 7.30. Instead of leaving the note on the desk, as is usually the case, he hides it inside his underwear. Then Kravchenko takes his dog for a walk. Some time later he suddenly abandons the dog on the street, comes into the garage, and shoots himself twice. Is this not strange behavior for an individual who has decided to voluntarily depart this world?

Minister of the Interior Yuriy Lutsenko and Chairman of the Security Service (SBU) Oleksandr Turchynov have also stated categorically, in unison with the president, that it was suicide. But they forgot to add that the Prosecutor-General’s Office (PGO) opened a criminal case under Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (premeditated murder) rather than under Article 120 (incitement to suicide). Moreover, Mr. Turchynov maintains that Kravchenko shot himself for fear of being punished because he was the prime suspect in the Gongadze affair. The truth is that, according to Article 43.1 of Ukraine’s Criminal and Procedural Code, a suspect is subject to a pretrial investigation or detained without being indicted yet. Since Kravchenko was not under any pretrial investigation (he had not even submitted a written pledge not to leave the city) and was not taken into custody, he was in fact not a suspect. The impression is created that the SBU head has been reading out the texts written by his press service, without comprehending a single word.

Messrs. Lutsenko and Turchynov even graced Kravchenko’s country house with their presence and supervised the forensic investigation at the site. What is more, they were doing this as if they had seen at least one corpse with gunshot wounds before. I wish they had entrusted this work to experienced operatives and refrained from giving interviews about a criminal case that was being investigated by the PGO. Incidentally, the law states that they do not even have the right to see the materials of such a case. Anyway, where law enforcement agencies are run by people who don’t have the faintest idea of what their work is all about and, moreover, are under the strict control of such “experts” as Yushchenko and Poroshenko, one can well imagine that Kravchenko would have been declared a suicide even if he had been shot five times.

No matter whether Kravchenko really did away with himself or it was a set-up, the only thin chain that might have linked Kuchma with the perpetrators of Gongadze’s murder has been broken, while the two police colonels now in custody can be brought to trial without any consequences for the former president. All we have to do now is wait for new “under-the-sofa recordings” in which Kuchma’s voice is instructing his courtiers, after Gongadze disappeared, to do their utmost to find the beloved journalist. In addition, experts will find it practically impossible to establish when and where these recordings were made because after Viktor Medvedchuk was appointed head of the Presidential Administration in 2002, he moved into Kuchma’s former office on the second floor of the building on Bankova St. and had it totally renovated, thus changing the acoustic properties of the premises.

As for the individuals who organized the bugging of the presidential office, for what purpose, and how the tapes came into the hands of a neighboring state’s secret services, all these questions are of no concern at all to the Security and Defense Council secretary (why spoil relations with Russia?). Mr. Poroshenko, who is gradually embracing the functions of the former Presidential Administration head, has even said that the recordings were made absolutely legally and with Kuchma’s knowledge — ostensibly in order not to forget what exactly was discussed in the office.

Nor is anybody interested in other details of these tapes. At any rate, Vice-Premier Mykola Tomenko, another “criminologist” on the Yushchenko team, said that once the Gongadze and Yelyashkevych cases are solved, all the other Melnychenko tapes can be set aside or destroyed. Our hearty congratulations to Mr. Kuchma!