You're reading: Medvedchuk questioned by prosecutors on March 30 as a witness in Kuchma case (updated)

A former head of Ukraine's presidential administration, Viktor Medvedchuk (2002-2005), was questioned on Wednesday, March 30, as a witness in a criminal case opened against second Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.

"Yesterday, an investigator questioned Viktor Medvedchuk as a witness in this case. The interrogation, which lasted about three hours, was held ahead of schedule due to the fact that Medvedchuk would not be able to come to the prosecutor’s office on the appointed day," reads a statement posted on the Web site of the Prosecutor General’s Office on Thursday.

Yevhen Marchuk, a former secretary of the Ukrainian National Security Council, is being questioned as a witness at the main department for high-profile cases of the Prosecutor General’s Office today.

"Other people who could give crucial testimony will be questioned as witnesses in the near future," it said.

A criminal case into the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze was opened against Kuchma on March 21, 2011. Kuchma is charged with abuse of office and giving illegal orders to Interior Ministry officials, which lead to the killing of Gongadze.

Gongadze went missing in Kyiv on September 16, 2000. A headless body that experts believed could be that of Gongadze was found in the forest in the Kyiv region in November 2000.

At the time of Gongadze’s killing, Medvedchuk held the post of parliament first deputy speaker, and was then appointed Kuchma’s chief-of-staff.

At the end of November 2000, Kuchma’s former bodyguard Mykola Melnychenko published his audio recordings, which allowed some political forces to accuse Kuchma of masterminding the journalist’s murder.

On March 2, 2005, Medvedchuk, who had already been dismissed as presidential chief-of-staff, denied any grounds to prosecute Kuchma as part of the Gongadze murder case.

He also said that Melnychenko’s tapes could not be recognized as evidence in this case.

Medvedchuk was questioned by Prosecutor General’s Office investigators as a witness in the Gongadze murder case on March 6, 2005.