Hit man kills top mentor
The Georgiy Gongadze case is just one politically motivated murder left over from the previous regime. Two years earlier, in 1998, Vadym Hetman, former head of the National Bank of Ukraine and mentor to future president Victor Yushchenko, was shot at point-blank range in the elevator of his apartment building upon returning home from work. He was shot three times. A “control” shot to the head and pistol left at the crime scene were telltale signs of a professional hit.
Reputed assassin Serhiy Kulev, 29, from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, was arrested in 2002, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment the following year. Prosecutors said that Kulev belonged to the “Kushnir Gang,” believed responsible for two other high-profile murders reputedly paid for by fugitive ex-premier Pavlo Lazarenko. Lazarenko and Kulev deny these allegations.
In early August 2005, Kulev filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Ukraine, claiming he was forced into making a false confession, but lost and remains in prison. His lawyer said the case against him was fabricated. Hetman’s assassination may have resulted from the clash between rival political and financial clans over the privatization of large enterprises dealing with energy, metals, chemicals and land.
A threat of similar high-profile murders still exists today. Too few changes have been made to lay the legal basis for private ownership, much less an honest and competent political and judicial system. Oligarchic ownership remains in many sectors of the economy.
The nation also lacks a strong middle class, while the government continues to balance the state budget on the backs of state workers, pensioners and students in an economy where, by the government’s own admission, up to 40 percent of its wealth is still in the shadows.
