MELNYCHENKO TURNS OVER MATERIALS CONNECTED WITH GONGADZE'S MURDER TO TOMENKO (Ukraine, suicide)

KYIV - Ex-President Leonid Kuchma's former bodyguard, Major Mykola Melnychenko, has turned over materials connected with the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze to Deputy Prime Minister Mykola Tomenko.

Melnychenko stated this in an interview with the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. "Tomenko took the materials," the publication quotes Melnychenko as saying. According to the information of the newspaper, Tomenko and Melnychenko met in Warsaw.

Melnychenko also expressed the opinion that former Internal Affairs Minister Yurii Kravchenko could have been seduced to commit suicide by people from Kuchma's inner circle. In Melnychenko's opinion, people from the inner circle of the former president are manipulating President Viktor Yuschenko.

Melnychenko observed that the Security Service of Ukraine proposed last week Wednesday to arrest Kravchenko, but the Prosecutor's General Office refused to do this, and he was found dead on Friday. Melnychenko also expressed the opinion that the PGO is making Yuschenko vulnerable in the Gongadze case.

"Yuschenko believed the prosecutor's office, and announced the solving of the case on the basis of its reports... This is a big mistake," Kuchma's former bodyguard said. Melnychenko also did not rule out that Yuschenko gave security guarantees to Kuchma. "Everyone seriously need to examine the possibility that Yuschenko gave Kuchma security guarantees," he said. "I am not saying that Yuschenko is involved in Kravchenko's death, but the suicide of the former ministers plays into the hand of Kuchma's people," Melnychenko added.

Following the news of Kravchenko's death, Kuchma returned to Ukraine on Saturday, March 5, having interrupted his vacation in Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic). As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Kravchenko was found dead on Friday morning, March 4, with two shots to the head at his cottage house outside Kyiv several hours before he was due to appear at the GPO for interrogation into the Gongadze case. According to preliminary version, the former minister committed suicide. Kravchenko stated in his suicide note that he is not guilty of anything, describing himself as a victim of the intrigues of Kuchma and his associates.

The PGO closed the criminal case in relations to Melnychenko that was launched in September 2004 and it is asking him to travel to Ukraine and bring along the originals of his recordings.

Gongadze disappeared in September 2000, and two months later his (headless) corpse was found in the woods outside of Kyiv. Following Gongadze's disappearance, a political scandal broke out in Ukraine, which was centered on the possibility of the involvement to this murder of then President Kuchma, the then head of the Administration of the President, current Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, as well as former head of the Security Service of Ukraine, current Verkhovna Rada deputy Leonid Derkach and Kravchenko.

GONGADZE SUSPECTS OFFICIALLY CHARGED WITH MURDER

UT1, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1700 gmt 8 Mar 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, In English, Tue, March 8, 2005

KYIV - [Ukrainian President] Viktor Yushchenko has told a news conference in
Berlin that the Prosecutor-General's Office in Ukraine has officially
charged the suspects in the journalist Heorhiy Gongadze case with murder.
The head of the state stressed that he is satisfied with the dynamics of the
investigation. Asked about the persecution of the former president, Leonid
Kuchma, Viktor Yushchenko said that the law is equal for everyone.

Let me recall that Ukraine's Prosecutor-General Svyatoslav Piskun said
earlier that the individuals directly involved in the murder have been
detained. According to him, investigators already know the name of the
person who gave the order to eliminate the journalist. [According to
Ukrayinska Pravda web site, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1 Mar 05, the chief
prosecutor said two colonels had been arrested over the murder.]

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