Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Witness's conscious clear; says he swore an oath of loyalty to Ukraine, and not the president to help carry out criminal orders

nted a transcript of videotaped testimony provided by Mykola Melnychenko, a former security service employee working in the guard of President Leonid Kuchma, claiming that voice recordings are proof that the president ordered the disappearance of opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze.

Outspoken opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze disappeared on Sept. 16 after leaving the offices of Ukrainska Pravda, the on-line newspaper that he founded.

After representatives of Ukraine’s mass media demanded an investigation into the journalist’s disappearance, President Kuchma said that he had taken the matter under his personal control.

From the very beginning, the Gongadze case was plagued with what appeared to be the incompetence of a number of bodies officially investigating the matter, including the Security Service (SBU), the Interior Ministry and the General Prosecutor’s Office.

In mid-November, a beheaded body, badly damaged by chemicals, which were applied to hasten its decomposition, was found in a forest just outside of Kyiv.

Representatives of mass media and friend’s of Gongadze claimed that the body was most likely that of the missing journalist based, among other things, on descriptions of jewelry found with the body that many said was jewelry that Gongadze was known to wear.

To date, an official investigation into the body’s identity has failed to reveal whether it belongs to the missing journalist.

On Nov. 28, Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz made public recordings that he said comprise an order from President Kuchma to several of his top aides to sideline Gongadze, and a report on that order’s fulfillment.

Kuchma and the aides implicated by Moroz in Gongadze’s disappearance filed libel suits with the General Prosecutor against the Socialist Party leader. Moroz responded by saying that he is prepared to support his claims against the president in court.

The Gongadze affair has already captured the attention of the world community and international mass media, with various highly respected international organizations demanding that the audio tapes allegedly linking President Kuchma to Gongadze’s disappearance undergo analysis by independent experts from outside Ukraine.

On Dec. 7, three members of Ukraine’s parliament traveled to an undisclosed destination in Europe to videotape testimony of a former SBU employee who says that he was responsible for making and passing on to Moroz the recordings in question of the president’s conversations.

The English-language translation of the transcript of the SBU officer’s videotaped testimony available at http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/6503

Original transcript at http://www.pravda.com.ua/?01211-8-1