Former Secretary of National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Yevhen Marchuk has said that second Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and former officer of the State Security Guard of Ukraine Major Mykola Melnychenko visited the Prosecutor General's Office on Friday.
Marchuk said he had not seen Kuchma or Melnychenko but was told by the investigator that they were at the Prosecutor General’s Office on Friday.
When asked by Interfax-Ukraine whether he had a face-to-face meeting with Kuchma, Marchuk that he had not.
Gongadze went missing in Kyiv on September 16, 2000. Later, [second Ukrainian President Leonid] Kuchma’s former bodyguard Mykola Melnychenko published his audio recordings, which prompted some political forces to accuse Kuchma of masterminding the journalist’s murder.
Marchuk was accused of organizing the bugging of Kuchma’s office. Marchuk categorically denied the accusations.
From 1963 Marchuk worked at the Committee for State Security (KGB) of the USSR. In 1991-1994, he headed the Security Service of Ukraine, later on he was appointed as the first vice premier of Ukraine, and in 1995-1996 Marchuk was the prime minister of Ukraine.
In 1999 he ran for the presidency, but was appointed as the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security Council between the first and second rounds. Marchuk served as the defense minister from June 2003 until September 2004.
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. Melnychenko’s tapes have been declared evidence in this case.
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