Melnychenko suspending cooperation with the Prosecutor General

Ex-Major Mykola Melnychenko (who made public tapes believed to have bearing on the Gongadze case) stated at a press conference on Wednesday that he will no longer cooperate with the Prosecutor General’s office.

“From today I am ceasing any cooperation with the Prosecutor General’s office until I have met representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. That session is scheduled for 14 – 18 April.  I thus want high-profile cases to be uncovered as quickly as possible.”

Mr Melnychenko said that President Yushchenko, the Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of the Party of the Regions Viktor Yanukovych and the lead of the Socialist Party Oleksandr Moroz should give testimony to the Prosecutor General’s office.

“For this a phonoscopic study needs to be carried out of the recordings of conversations between Kuchma and Lytvyn and Yushchenko.  The President must confirm that the conversation took place.

He stated that in the segments of the conversation between Kuchma and Yushchenko Georgy Gongadze’s name is not mentioned, while in that between Kuchma and Volodymyr Lytvyn it is.

As reported, on 15 March the Kyiv Court of Appeal sentenced three former police officers to 13 (in one case) and 12 year terms of imprisonment for carrying out the murder of Georgy Gongadze. Their former boss, Oleksy Pukach is on the run.

The journalist’s widow Myroslava Gongadze issued a statement after the sentences were passed in which she stresses:

““The court ruling in the case around Georgy’s killing de jure establishes the fact that under the Kuchma regime, subdivisions or individual police officers were used to carry out politically motivated crimes.”

She and Lesya Gongadze, the journalist’s mother have repeatedly stated that those who ordered the murder should be put on trial.

And not they alone …

Loosely based on information at www.pravda.com.ua