The investigation into the near-fatal dioxin poisoning of Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko is generating a flurry of new activity. The victim himself gave testimony to prosecutors on July 22 and hinted at a breakthrough in the stalled 2004 case.
Also, a prosecutorial cloud fell on parliamentarian David Zhvania, a former presidential ally and now a fierce Yushchenko critic. Zhvania, who prosecutors say refuses to cooperate with the probe, has in a recent interview suggested the president might have suffered from food poisoning, not purposeful poisoning.
Zhvania was a guest at the Sept. 5, 2004 dinner, where Yushchenko is believed to have been poisoned.
According to a July 16 prosecutor’s statement, Zhvania has been summoned for questioning 10 times since Feb. 22, but has failed to come or justify his reasons for not complying. Zhvania stepped into the General Prosecutor’s office on July 23, but refused to provide testimony, insisting rather to speak to top officials handling the investigation.
“I cannot assert anything, but my personal experience as an investigator allows me to suggest two scenarios: either he (Zhvania) is afraid of somebody or something in regard to the case investigation or he is himself accessorial to the crime,” Oleksiy Donskiy, a top investigator with the General Prosecutor’s office, told journalists on July 23.
Donskiy, elaborating on his remarks, refused to call Zhvania a suspect and said he was merely giving a personal reaction to Zhvania’s uncooperative behavior. “I cannot tell you that he is a suspect in the case,” Donskiy said, insisting investigators are prohibited by law from revealing details of ongoing probes.
On July 14 and 16, Serhiy Leshchenko, a journalist for leading online news portal Ukrainska Pravda, was questioned by prosecutors after he published reports this month quoting Zhvania, who questioned whether Yushchenko was poisoned at all.
Yushchenko’s disfigured face became an international symbol of the democratic Orange Revolution from 2004, when mass street protests and a Supreme Court ruling overturned a rigged vote.
Another explosive element to the mystery is that many Ukrainians point the finger at Russia, since Yushchenko was running against a Kremlinbacked candidate in the election. Russia is reportedly one of the few countries that produces the type of dioxin with which he was poisoned.
Prosecutors said Russia was playing a major role in holding up the case in its refusal to extradite a key figure, Volodymyr Satsyuk, the host of the fateful Sept. 5, 2004, dinner. Sources said Russian authorities have refused to handover Satsyuk on grounds that he, and several other alleged suspects, are today Russian citizens. Satsyuk is a former deputy head of the State Security Service of Ukraine, known by its SBU acronym. While he is reportedly a suspect, prosecutors said the extradition request is not related to the poisoning, but to a corruption case.
The new twists to the case seem to raise more questions than answers. Many question whether the case will ever be solved.
Speaking to journalists on July 22 before giving testimony to prosecutors for the first time since 2005, Yushchenko, like in previous years, expressed confidence the case will be solved soon. But his remarks were oblique.
“The case is coming to its logical conclusion,” Yushchenko told journalists while on his way to meet with prosecutors on July 22. “By my presence here, I want to confirm that I am particularly interested in it’s soonest end.”
Yushchenko said Ukrainians will get to know a lot of “new and strange things” when the investigation is done. “There will be very unpleasant things for specific people who, it seemed, defended Ukraine’s national interests or were supposed to defend them,” the president said.
It remains unclear why Yushchenko was summoned to testify again.
Yushchenko’s visit to the prosecutor’s office followed the interrogation of Leshchenko, whose reporting on the poisoning case revealed new details previously unknown to the public.
In his interview granted to Leshchenko, Zhvania cast doubt over the validity of dioxinpoisoning tests done years ago that suggested Yushchenko was poisoned. Zhvania insisted that Yushchenko was first diagnosed as suffering the effects of pancreatitis, herpes and facial nerve inflammation.
Zhvania said the dinnerpoisoning scenario emerged from discussions in Yushchenko’s headquarters after the thenpresidential candidate fell ill. Zhvania was present at the dinner in question which took place at Satsyuk’s dacha, but insists Yushchenko was not poisoned there.
The deterioration in relations between Yushchenko and Zhvania appears to almost have cost Zhvania, a native of Georgia, his Ukrainian citizenship. Zhvania has accused top presidential aids of spearheading litigation to strip him of his Ukrainian citizenship. The dispute is still being litigated in court.
In past years, Yushchenko has repeatedly told journalists that he knows who was behind the poisoning. He has repeatedly said the main suspects, a handful of individuals, are residing in Russia. He has never identified them by name, nor directly pointed to involvement by Zhvania. Insiders, however, say that Yushchenko suspects Zhvania of involvement.
In an interview posted on the Ukrainska Pravda website, Leshchenko speculated that Zhvania is a key witness in the case.
“I think they are trying to solve several issues. The number one task is to solve a problem with Zhvania, who got the investigation department’s goat, because he does not come for questioning,” Leshchenko said. “Task No. 2 is to make me stop writing about the poisoning case, by frightening me with criminal responsibility for disclosure of investigative secrets.”
According to Leshchenko, investigators told him he could publish opinions on whether Yushchenko had been poisoned or not, but he is not allowed to publish information with details of the poisoning.
“I think they violate my rights as a journalist this way, because an investigator may interpret any information I provide in my materials on Yushchenko’s poisoning as an investigative secret,” Leshchenko said. “This will just divest me of the right to practice my profession.”
Taras Shevchenko, a director at Kyivbased nongovernmental organization Media Law Institute, said that an investigator can decide whom he wants to question and when, according to the current criminal procedural code. “However, when taking into account the conditions we know about, we think that the interrogation of Leshchenko is pressure” tactics.
Oleksiy Stepura, a freelance journalist who has also conducted an investigation on the poisoning case, said: “It is obvious that the interrogation is a warning to all the journalists who would express doubt about this canonical version that Yushchenko had been poisoned with dioxin at Satsyuk’s dacha.”
Stepura also claims to have been informally questioned by SBU officials last year ago when he was investigating the case.
“They tried to find out why I was so interested in this case. I think it was an attempt to apply pressure on me to prevent publications about the case that suggest the poisoning might not have occurred at Satsyuk’s dacha,” Stepura said.
This report includes material from the Associated Press. Dariya Orlova can be reached at [email protected] or 4964563 ext. 1105.
