You're reading: Kuchma: Prosecutors provided no examination of authenticity of Melnychenko tapes

Ukraine's second president (1994-2005), Leonid Kuchma, has said that the Prosecutor General's Office has not yet provided any examination of the tapes made by former State Guard Department officer, Major Mykola Melnychenko, which would have testified their alleged authenticity.

After leaving the building of the Prosecutor General’s Office on Monday, Kuchma told reporters: "They gave us some additional old examinations. However, they are not giving us the examination that was announced in an interview by First Deputy Prosecutor General [Renat Kuzmin]. They say that they don’t have it yet."

Kuchma expressed doubt that there might be definite conclusions about the authenticity of the Melnychenko tapes.

"I can say that experts who can unambiguously make such a conclusion should be given the Nobel Prize," he said.

He also recalled that one Ukrainian and two German examinations of the Melnychenko tapes had been conducted.

"If there is no positive conclusion there, then it suddenly appears that all the voices belong to me, [former Interior Minister Yuriy] Kravchenko, [current Parliament Speaker Volodymyr] Lytvyn, [former SBU Chief Leonid] Derkach and the others."

As reported, the Prosecutor General’s Office confirmed that the voices on the tapes recorded by Melnychenko were authentic.

"Higher quality studies were conducted in autumn 2010. Based on additional phonoscopic examinations experts concluded that the voices of persons involved in Gonzadze’s murder and recorded on Melnychenko’s tapes belong to Kuchma and Kravchenko. We confirmed the absence of any editing. For this reason the tapes were placed at the core of charges brought against Kuchma," Kuzmin said in an interview for the Focus magazine.

He also explained how the authenticity of voices and events recorded on the tapes was established.

"This is investigative work. Here we are talking with you. And a certain sergeant Ivanov is sitting in a wardrobe with a tape recorder. Sergeant Ivanov knows our names. And when we talk, we call each other by the name thus identifying ourselves," Kuzmin said.

He said that voices are identified on the basis of all these facts as well as the phonoscopic study. "I hope you understood the comparison," Kuzmin said.

He confirmed that the voices of Lytvyn and Derkach could be found on the tapes discussing the situation with reporter Georgy Gongadze. Lytvyn and Derkach are also expected to be screened for involvement in the reporter’s murder.

Earlier reports said that Melnychenko’s tapes were recognized as material evidence in the criminal case against Kuchma, who is charged with abuse of power and office that ultimately led to the murder of Georgy Gongadze in 2000. The Prosecutor General’s office is now investigating his criminal case.