You're reading: Melnychenko says he left Kyiv to protect Skadovsk-based health improvement facility

Former State Guard Department Major Mykola Melnychenko has said that he left Kyiv, despite being under a travel ban, to protect the personnel of the Zbruch health improvement facility in Lazurne (Skadovsk district of Kherson region) from alleged illegal seizure.

In a phone conversation with an Interfax-Ukraine reporter, he said that he officially informed the investigator about his intention to leave his place of residence in Kyiv and allegedly received permission for this.

According to Melnychenko, he was invited by a Kharkiv-based human rights organization to take part in a court hearing in Skadovsk on Monday as a defense lawyer.

He added that for two years some people have been trying to seize the Zbruch health improvement facility using influence of local, state, and law enforcement agencies.

Melnychenko also said that a resident of Kramatorsk, who earlier served a sentence for kidnapping, was interested in the seizure of the facility.

At the same time, Melnychenko promised to return to Kyiv and fulfill his obligations.

In November 2000, a scandal broke in Ukraine after the parliament announced there were audio recordings allegedly made by Melnychenko in the office of then President Leonid Kuchma. Melnychenko was charged with divulging state secrets, exceeding his powers and using forged documents.

In September 2011, Melnychenko was put on the wanted list. A court in Kyiv ordered that he be remanded in custody, as Melnychenko had skipped bail and absconded.

Melnychenko was arrested in Italy on Aug. 3. On Aug. 14, an appellate court in Naples decided to release him.

On Sept. 14, 2012 Melnychenko told a briefing in the United States that, on sensational audio tapes published by him, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko was named as the person who had commissioned the murder of businessman Yevhen Scherban, and that Petro Kyrychenko, a business partner of Lazarenko, and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, had paid for the crime.

Melnychenko was detained at Kyiv’s Boryspil International Airport on Oct. 24, where he had arrived on a flight from New York.

On Oct. 26, Kyiv’s Shevchenkivsky District Court released him on bail of Hr 76,500, which is around $9,600, and obliged him to report any change of residence to the investigator.