Report: Ex-major Melnychenko is in Israel

Former Major of the State Department of Guard Mykola Melnychenko is in Israel, the Kommersant-Ukraine newspaper reported on Friday. "I'm now in Israel, because I know that U.S. justice and the justice of those European countries where I was before will show a large bolt to the Ukrainian prosecutor's office if it demands my extradition. I challenge this system. If they have something to bring against me, demanding my deportation from Israel to Ukraine, they will be obliged to give this country at least some charges against me. However, they don't have justified and lawful charges," the newspaper quoted Melnychenko as saying.

He also said that according to the information he has, there is a threat to the lives of a number of former and current Ukrainian officials.

"Understand that the 'death squads' that are managed by people who were in power or now hold important posts are ready for anything. A verdict has been given not only against Melnychenko. The mafia have sentenced to death, removed or discredited [Ukrainian First Deputy Prosecutor General] Renat Kuzmin, Former National Security and Defense Council Secretary Yevhen Marchuk and Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz. All these people, like me, are in danger," Melnychenko said.

A criminal case was opened against Melnychenko regarding the disclosure of state secrets, abuse of office and using counterfeit documents.

On July 29, 2011, Kyiv Court of Appeals upheld a decision of Kyiv's Pechersky District Court of June 23, 2011, which cancelled a resolution of former Prosecutor General Sviatoslav Piskun of March 1, 2005, who closed the criminal case against Melnychenko.

On Oct. 14, 2011, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said that Melnychenko had twice attempted to leave Ukrainian territory and that on Sept. 23, an SBU investigator issued a resolution to put him on the wanted list.

On Oct.18, 2011, Shevchenkivsky District Court in Kyiv ordered the arrest of Melnychenko as he is hiding from investigation.

The court ruling says that if Melnychenko is detained, he should be brought to court in less than two days in order to choose the measure of restraint for him in the form of detention.

Earlier reports said that Melnychenko was in the United States.



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