Witness in Lutsenko trial “advised” by phone what to say in court

Valery Melnyk, former Aide to ex-Minister of Internal Affairs, Yury Lutsenko, asserted in court on Friday that he had been rung a few days before the hearing from the Prosecutor’s Office and advised what he should say in court.  He said that there were two calls and he was told to say what he’d said during the interrogation.  He said that he had been phoned from that same number during the investigation.

Earlier Mr Melnyk had asserted that the investigators had twisted quite a number of his explanations during his interrogation.

“In the protocols, I don’t know why, but a lot of my testimony has been twisted. The investigator running the case must have re-formulated things as needed”.  Mr Melnyk added that this could have happened before he was in a very bad condition during the questioning, and was not able to read the protocols properly.

He asserted that the investigators had virtually tormented him, saying that he asked them to let him go to hospital since interrogating a sick man from 9 in the morning till 9 in the evening, sending him from office to office, amounted to cruel treatment.

He said that he had even crossed out one protocol since he couldn’t read it, although the investigators had forced him to do so.

Mr Melnyk stated in court that he had not received any instruction from Yury Lutsenko to employ Leonid Prystuplyuk (Lutsenko’s driver – translator) in the MIA.  “He only said in the office that it was necessary to decide what to do with the place [in the MIA] for his driver. I phoned the staff department and asked how drivers had previously been employed. I was told that all drivers had previously been employed in the MIA Department of Investigative Intelligence since they had to keep State secrets”.  He stressed that all his actions had been in accordance with current legislation.

From reports at UNIAN and Ukrainska Pravda