KYIV, Dec. 13 (AP) – President Leonid Kuchma strongly denied on Wednesday that he had issued orders to silence a crusading journalist who later disappeared, and he urged investigators to solve the case as quickly as possible.
In a videotape shown in parliament the day before, a former bodyguard accused Kuchma of giving “criminal orders” to take action against the journalist, Georhy Gongadze.
Earlier, an opposition party leader circulated what he said was a tape of Kuchma and other top officials discussing measures to silence Gongadze.
“A large-scale provocation is taking place,” presidential spokesman Oleksandr Martynenko quoted Kuchma as saying on Wednesday. The audio recording, he said, was a fake.
“The logic behind the recent events is that of scandal and not the search for truth,” Martynenko told a news conference.
The audio recording was purportedly made by Maj. Mykola Melnychenko, who served in the presidential guard and is now in hiding abroad. Melnychenko’s testimony was then videotaped by lawmakers investigating the Gongadze case.
Melnychenko said he had bugged Kuchma using a digital recorder hidden under a sofa in the president’s office after learning that Kuchma allegedly gave out illegal orders.
He said Kuchma had supposedly ordered measures to stifle critical media and political foes. The president and his aides also discussed a lawsuit or “other means” to silence Gongadze, the officer alleged.
Gongadze went missing on Sept. 16 in the capital Kyiv on his way home from work. He edited the Internet newsletter Ukrainska Pravda and was an outspoken critic of the government and of alleged high-level corruption.
Journalists and some legislators said he had most likely been the victim of a politically motivated attack.
In the poor-quality audio recording, copies of which were distributed by Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz, a man who sounds like Kuchma talks about Gongadze, but it is not clear whether he is urging any action or simply venting anger.
Kuchma wants investigators to solve the case as quickly as possible, including a genetic examination of a beheaded body found in a forest near Kyiv on November, which some believe was that of Gongadze, Martynenko said.
In parliament, meanwhile, opposition lawmakers demanded that officials who are allegedly involved in the Gongadze affair be suspended, the Interfax news agency said. But parliament on Tuesday failed to adopt a resolution calling for the ouster of Ukraine’s security and customs services’ chiefs.
Critics accuse Kuchma of suppressing opposition media through court fines and tax penalties. The government says its opponents claim harassment to cover their own professional and financial mistakes.
