You're reading: Source: Melnychenko has gone missing

A senior law enforcement official said that Mykola Melnychenko, the former presidential bodyguard who claims he secretly recorded conversations implicating Leonid Kuchma and other top officials in crimes while Kuchma was Ukraine's president, has gone missing.

“He was under the watch of security officials. But I can confirm that his whereabouts are now not known,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity, and refusing to provide further details on the sensitive matter.

Citing a source in Ukraine’s security services, Ukraine’s Segodnya daily reported that Melnychenko could have sneaked out of Ukraine, possibly into Romania.

Details remain fuzzy about whether Melnychenko – who spent years in Europe and the United States in hiding after his recordings were made public in 2000 but returned to Ukraine after the Orange Revolution – was formally barred from leaving Ukraine, pending the results of an active investigation.

On Sept. 7, Melnychenko complained that authorities prohibited him from crossing the border into Poland without giving proper explanation.

The press service of Ukraine’s State Security Service, which authorities say is currently handling a criminal case against Melnychenko on suspected treason, was not able to immediately confirm or deny his disappearance.

Melnychenko and his recordings of conversations in Kuchma’s office were at the center of a decade-long saga of alleged cover-ups and numerous wrongdoings by top officials caught on tape.

In past interviews, Melnychenko claims his recordings caught Kuchma and other top officials engaging in criminal activities, pilfering of state assets and even the Sept. 16, 2000, murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

The disappearance of Melnychenko raises further questions about the competence of Ukrainian law enforcement and the nation’s rule of law.

Kuchma, who ruled from 1994-2005, always denied the accusations.

But subsequent events lent credibility to the Melnychenko tapes, including criminal charges filed by state prosecutors accusing Kuchma of exceeding his authority in giving an order that led to Gongadze’s murder.

Moreover, a secret trial of ex-Interior Ministry Gen. Oleksiy Pukach is under way on murder charges.

Pukach was a direct subordinate of ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko, who died of two gunshot wounds to the head on March 4, 2005, the same day that he was scheduled to give testimony in the case.

Three of Pukach’s subordinates have already been convicted and are serving prison terms for the murder.

The disappearance of Melnychenko raises further questions about the competence of Ukrainian law enforcement and the nation’s rule of law.

The development also casts yet another cloud over the 11-year old and still unsolved investigation into the murder of Gongadze.

It was the so-called Melnychenko recordings released two months after Gongadze’s 2000 disappearance in which a voice resembling Kuchma was heard giving orders to law enforcement officials to do away with the journalist that was highly critical of Ukraine’s leadership in his reporting.

In recent years, four police officers were convicted of taking part in the kidnapping and brutal murder of Gongadze. Their superior officer, Oleksiy Pukach, is currently on trial but pro-democracy and journalist activists fear that officials are covering up for high-level officials that could have masterminded and ordered the murder.

Melnychenko’s lawyer Mykola Nadylko told journalists on Oct. 5 that he hadn’t seen his client recently, but reported that a suspected explosive device was found in Melnychenko’s residence in Kyiv Oblast in late September.