Ukrainian law enforcement officers may have been involved in the disappearance this month of a leading journalist who is now presumed dead, Interior Minister Anatoly Mogylyov said on Thursday.
Vasyl Klymentyev, editor-in-chief of the "Noviy Stil" newspaper, which focuses on corruption issues in the eastern Kharkiv region, went missing on Aug. 11 after leaving his home with an unidentified man, according to police reports.
Mogylyov, speaking on Ukraine’s 5th television channel, said: "We suspect representatives of law enforcement bodies, both current and dismissed ones, may have been involved."
For that reason, the investigation into Klymentyev’s disappearance was now being conducted by police at the national level rather than locally, he said.
"There are sufficient grounds to consider him (Klymentyev) dead," Mogylyov said, adding that a murder investigation had formally been opened.
Klymentyev’s disappearance has evoked echoes of the killing of campaigning online journalist Heorhiy Gongadze in 2000 in a case that shook the presidency of Leonid Kuchma because of allegations, never proven, of high-level involvement.
Gongadze’s murder have never been identified.
The Ukrainian press, harassed and intimidated under Kuchma, grew significantly freer after the 2004 Orange Revolution brought in a more liberal, pro-Western leadership.
But Ukrainian media freedom groups are increasingly complaining of a return to censorship and pressure following the election of President Viktor Yanukovich in February.
In recent months, the United States and media rights group Reporters Without Borders have voiced concerns about worsening media freedoms in Ukraine, though Yanukovich himself has pledged several times to defend media freedoms.
Klymentyev’s newspaper is known for its criticism of law enforcement agencies and Mogyloyov said earlier this month that his disappearance may have been linked to his reporting activities.
The human rights watchdog Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Wednesday expressed concern over Klymentyev’s disappearance and said it hoped for a "swift and transparent investigation" by authorities.
