You're reading: Newspaper: Melnychenko ready to hand over his tapes to PGO if asks

Former State Guard Department Major Mykola Melnychenko, who earlier accused former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of being involved in the murder of MP Yevhen Scherban in 1996, has said he is ready to provide recordings to the Prosecutor-General's Office to prove it. 

“There were talks about this murder in the office of Leonid Kuchma [Ukrainian President 1994-2005]. The ex-president talked with Prosecutor General of Ukraine Mykhailo Potebenko and Mykola Obykhod. They discussed Pavlo Lazarenko’s [ex-premier of Ukraine] ordering the murder of Yevhen Scherban. The reason for this was to take control of Donetsk region. Yevhen Kushnir was the organizer, while Yulia Tymoshenko and Lazarenko’s business partner, Petro Kyrychenko, financed the murder. The records also demonstrate how the ex-premier created offshore structures, laundered money and evaded taxes. I’m ready to give them to the PGO if it asks,” Melnychenko said from the United States in an interview with Izvestia v Ukraine.

Asked why he decided to reveal this information only now, Melnychenko said: “I would have announced tapes that prove the involvement of Tymoshenko in the murder of Scherban earlier. But I was detained. Not long after, I managed to fulfill my intentions.”

“With my intentions I try to clarify all the events of those years. I have records. The PGO should investigate all of the incidents that directly or indirectly prove guilt of this or that person, without regard to their surnames,” the ex-major said.

As reported, at a press conference on April 4, Scherban’s son, Ruslan, said that he had passed to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine documents on the possible involvement of former Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko and former Ukrainian Premier Pavlo Lazarenko in the murder of his father.

Tymoshenko and Lazarenko have categorically denied their involvement in the murder.

Melnychenko earlier wrote on his Facebook page that he has information about the murder of Scherban and is ready to provide this information to the son of the late deputy, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine and Tymoshenko’s lawyers.