Mykola Melnychenko and his tapes are back in the spotlight again.
In charging ex-President Leonid Kuchma on March 24 with abuse of power that led to the 2000 murder of Georgiy Gongadze, prosecutors said they are weighing as evidence parts of the Melnychenko tapes that relate to the slain journalist.
But Melnychenko, the former Kuchma bodyguard, says he recorded thousands of hours of conversations involving the president who ruled from 1994 to 2005.
Melnychenko said he hopes prosecutors will also examine the other recordings that allegedly implicate Kuchma and other high-ranking officials plotting numerous other crimes, not only the Gongadze one. Kuchma has denied all charges of wrongdoing.
“This will help cleanse Ukraine much the way lustration did in Poland and the Baltics after communism,” Melnychenko told the Kyiv Post on March 28.
On March 31, one sign emerged that prosecutors were doing just that. Melnychenko left the prosecutor’s office and told journalists that investigators questioned him for the first time on alleged crimes caught on tape other than the Gongadze murder.
Melnychenko created an international sensation after releasing excerpts of the taped conversations involving Kuchma meetings from 1998 to 2000, when the former president was at the height of his authoritarian rule. The public release came two months after Gongadze’s muder on Sept.16, 2000.
Besides the Gongadze kidnapping, the tapes allegedly implicate Kuchma and other top officials in other cases of crime and corruption, including the rigging of the 1999 presidential election, blackmail and what Melnychenko calls the theft of “billions of dollars in state property.”
Many of the incidents had the ring of truth to those who heard the tapes or who knew how deeply infested with corruption Ukraine was back then.
In the conversations there are signs of criminal wrongdoing.”
– Mykola Melnychenko, former Kuchma bodyguard.
Kuchma left office in 2005, replaced by ex-President Viktor Yushchenko, who lost his re-election bid in 2010, leading to Viktor Yanukovych’s election on Feb. 7, 2010.
In a country with a functioning and independent judicial system, the Melnychenko tapes may have provided law enforcers with key leads they needed to launch serious criminal investigations.
In lawless Ukraine, however, the Melnychenko tapes just became another political football. Under Kuchma, the public’s attention got sidetracked over endless debates about the tapes’ authenticity and who stood behind Melnychenko.
All the while, investigations into the events described on the tapes went nowhere throughout Kuchma’s tenure. Critics think it was part of a massive cover-up that included a changing cast of prosecutors, investigators and explanations.
While incremental progress in solving the Gongadze murder came during Yushchenko’s five-year term, the tapes and the investigation reignited on March 24 after prosecutors charged Kuchma in the case.
Officially, prosecutors accused Kuchma of “exceeding authority, which led to the death of Gongadze.” But prosecutors also didn’t rule out murder charges after the investigation is completed.
Prosecutors also said, for the first time, the tapes will be used as “material evidence” in the Kuchma investigation.
It is still to be seen whether the development will trigger other investigations against current and former top officials, including Yanukovych, who then governed the nation’s most populous oblast in Donetsk.
Reports suggest that Yanukovych is implicated on the tapes in agreeing to Kuchma’s demands to remove a judge whose rulings could not be controlled.
In an interview, Melnychenko said that Yanukovych, former National Security Council head Yevhen Marchuk, former Presidential Administration chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are all on the tapes.
If [Viktor] Yanukovych fails to bring this case to a logical conclusion, then he will be exposed as a con.”– Mykola Melnychenko, former Kuchma bodyguard.
“In the conversations some of them had, there are signs of criminal wrongdoing,” Melnychenko said.
The former bodyguard urged Ukrainian investigators to authenticate the rest of his recordings and to probe crimes documented in them. So far, according to Melnychenko, Ukrainian prosecutors have authenticated only less than an hour of recordings that deal directly with the Gongadze case.
The general prosecutor’s office declined to comment on the tapes, citing the restarted investigation.
Melnychenko said the portion of recordings accepted by prosecutors as material evidence in the Gongadze case are the ones where voices resembling Kuchma and other top officials are heard discussing how to silence Gongadze.
One voice resembles current parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, who was chief of staff to Kuchma in 2000. Lytvyn, like Kuchma, has always denied any wrongdoing.
In the interview, Melnychenko – who spent the last few years of Kuchma’s rule hiding abroad – praised Yanukovych for finally making headway in the Gongadze case. “I think he is a patriot,” Melnychenko said.
But Melnychenko also sent a sharp warning to Yanukovych. “If Yanukovych fails to bring this case to a logical conclusion, then he will be exposed as a con,” he said.
Kuchma has long said Melnychenko could have been working for foreign intelligence agencies. The former presidential bodyguard himself has damaged his credibility over the years with varying accounts of his actions.
Melnychenko admits that, before Gongadze’s death, he gave copies of some recordings to top officials in the hopes of gaining support for an investigation of Kuchma that would lead to his impeachment as president.
This prospect, if true, leaves open the prospect that Kuchma could have been framed.
The Melnychenko recordings are crucial to understanding what happened, but Melnychenko has never given investigators any proof that he himself made them.”
– Valentyna Telychenko, a lawyer representing Gongadze’s widow.
Melnychenko repeated past claims that he alone masterminded and physically conducted the secret recordings of Kuchma’s office. But not all are convinced that Melnychenko acted alone.
“The Melnychenko recordings are crucial to understanding what happened, but Melnychenko has never given investigators any proof that he himself made them,” said Valentyna Telychenko, a lawyer representing Gongadze’s widow.
Some also claim that proving authenticity of the recordings in court will be challenging, which would force investigators to rely on other evidence.
Even disregarding the tapes, the evidence pointing to possible involvement by Kuchma is considered compelling by many people. Weeks before his death, Gongadze complained that police were tailing him.
Three officers are serving prison sentences for their role in kidnapping and killing Gongadze. A fourth, former police General Oleksiy Pukach, has been in jail for nearly two years awaiting trial. He allegedly confessed and reportedly gave testimony implicating Kuchma and Lytvyn, although prosecutors have not discussed that evidence publicly.
Moreover, the interior minister at the time, Yuriy Kravchenko, was a close confidante of Kuchma. Kravchenko died mysteriously of two gunshot wounds to the head on March 4, 2005, the day he was supposed to give testimony in the Gongadze case. Officials say he left a note claiming to be the victim of Kuchma intrigues.
Here are some excerpts of the Kyiv Post interview with Melnychenko:
KP: What portion of your recordings have been tested and authenticated?
MM: “I gave about 20-30 hours of my recordings to be tested. Of this, experts studied no more than one hour: precisely the phrases which relate to the illegal orders of Kuchma in reference to Gongadze. I hope that after this, prosecutors will have the courage to investigate other episodes which are documented on the recordings.
Foremost, we are talking about financial machinations from the side of high level state officials, Kuchma’s family and others. And special attention should be given to return to the state these tens of billions of dollars which Ukraine’s leaders have stolen in bandit style.”
KP: Which individuals do you have in mind, specifically?
MM: Foremost [Kuchma’s son-in-law, billionaire Victor] Pinchuk. (Pinchuk, contacted by the Kyiv Post, refused comment.)
KP: Do you have examples of assets figuring in the recordings, which could have been criminally taken due to his or Kuchma’s actions? What was stolen?
MM: Take for example ICTV television channel.
KP: What about Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant? Is it mentioned in the recordings?
MM: As well. There is proof. Also Mykolayiv Alumina Plant and Sumykhimprom chemical plant.
KP: But Sumykhimprom is still state-owned.
MM: There was an attempt. Had the tapes not been revealed, it would have been in Kuchma’s ownership.
KP: Who do you consider to be the murderer of Gongadze?
MM: I would advise Leonid Danylovych [Kuchma] not to take upon himself the sins of others. I am completely convinced that had Leonid Danylovych came to the prosecutors in connection with this case, gave testimony about who directed his focus on Gongadze, who brought him his articles, if he showed at least half of the wealth of his many billions which he illegally owns, and returned it to the state, that many people would forgive him.
It is my personal conviction that Volodymyr Lytvyn was preparing a change in power in Ukraine, that behind the killing stood the head of the Presidential Administration back then, Volodymyr Lytvyn. I am convinced that he did this.
KP: Why do you think prosecutors are not calling him in for questioning now?
MM: I think it’s only a matter of time.
KP: Perhaps everyone implicated on the tapes for committing crimes should step down from politics?
MM: With the help of the recordings, we can illustrate what is happening today in Ukraine.
Yanukovych and the oligarchs who helped him come to power and stole from Ukraine, are sitting high atop a tree above the people. Yanukovych and the oligarchs are sitting on a branch. Yanukovych is sawing at this branch. The people are below watching. I believe Yanukovych is a patriot at heart. And if the people see what he is doing, they will catch him as he falls, they won’t let him fall into hell with the oligarchs.”
