Audio tape allegedly links Kuchma to case of missing journalist
KYIV, Nov. 30 – The case of missing journalist Georgy Gongadze erupted into an international scandal Nov. 28 after Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz announced to parliament that he possessed a tape linking the president to the high‑profile case.
At a press conference following the speech, Moroz played the 15‑minute cassette peppered with expletives and racial slurs. The tape contained 11 separate conversations between three people who Moroz claimed are President Leonid Kuchma, Interior Minister Yury Kravchenko and the president’s chief of staff, Volodymyr Lytvyn. According to Moroz the conversations were recorded during a two‑ to three‑month period beginning at least a month before the journalist disappeared on Sept. 16.
In the first segment, a voice purported to be Kuchma says he’s bothered by Gongadze and his online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda:
“There’s this one Gongadze … he constantly writes in some kind of Ukrainska Pravda, he pushes it into the Internet, understand? … He needs to be pushed back. Volodya says the Chechens should kidnap him and drive him to Chechnya to [expletive] himself and ask for ransom.”
In another conversation Kuchma says: “I’m telling you to drive him out. Give him to the Chechens, undress him, leave him without his pants.”
A voice purported to be Kravchenko’s replies: “I’m not letting Gongadze out … I want to study up on his contacts.”
Moroz told reporters he received the tape in mid‑October from an officer of the Special Communications Detachment of Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU). The officer was responsible for preventing leaks of information from premises used by the president. The man was not identified, but Moroz said he is willing to testify in court.
Moroz said he held the tape for well over a month because the officer asked him not to release it because he needed time to secure himself and his family. He has reportedly fled the country with his family.
Moroz told journalists he believes the tape is authentic and said he has asked European law enforcement agencies to verify their authenticity.
The Presidential Administration, SBU and Interior Affairs Ministry vehemently denied that the tapes were real. Volodymyr Lytvyn, appearing on evening television broadcasts Nov. 28, threatened to sue Moroz for libel.
Meanwhile, the public relations arm of the SBU released a statement claiming that it would be “impossible” to record a conversation in the president’s office because all those entering are guarded at all times.
The statement claimed that all SBU officers who could have been involved had denied having contact with Moroz.
Aside from talk about Gongadze, speakers on the tape made disparaging comments about several other people, including journalist Tetyana Korobova and deputies Hryhory Omelchenko and Serhy Holovaty. There were profanity‑riddled statements about “Yulia,” seemingly referring to Kuchma nemesis Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. There were also several anti‑Semetic remarks, apparently directed at wealthy businessman Hryhory Surkis.
Such language is not out of character for Kuchma, said Olena Prytula, Ukrainska Pravda editor, who accompanied the president on his trips abroad when she worked as a reporter for Interfax.
“The vocabulary that was used on the tape is completely similar to the vocabulary of the president,” Prytula said. “As a person who spent a lot of time with the president, I must say that it’s typical for him to discuss journalists and the articles written about him to his close circle using the language that was used on a tape.”
On Nov. 29, Moroz addressed parliament again, this time suggesting that deputies ask the U.S. Embassy to conduct independent testing on a decapitated body found in the village of Tarashcha south of Kyiv on Nov. 3 and widely suspected to be Gongadze’s.
Moroz, who on Nov. 28 made the tapes available to all media outlets, asked deputies to refrain from commenting on the tape before all the details of Gongadze’s disappearance are known to the public.
In May 1999, Kuchma was named the world’s sixth greatest enemy of the press by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Moroz made every effort to ensure the scandal would be picked up by international press. He first announced that he had a notorious tape on Nov. 24 in Budapest, where he attended the Central European Initiative Summit. Moroz told about his intention to make the tape public in Ukrainian Parliament to Dutch newspaper De Volkstrat.
“The president committed a crime and according to the Ukrainian constitution, parliament has to start the impeachment procedure,” Moroz said. De Volkstrat also mentions that the SBU officer that gave the tape to Moroz left abroad along with his family.
European organizations immediately reacted to the scandal involving the president.
Jan Marinus Wiersma, a member of the European Parliament and President of the EP Delegation with Ukraine, wrote a letter to parliament expressing his outrage.
“If true, this information is even more shocking than the famous Watergate Affair,” Wiersma wrote. “The possible implication of the highest Ukrainian authorities in the disappearance of journalists and other violent attacks against freedom of the media and freedom of speech would be intolerable. Such actions may severely endanger relations between the European Union and Ukraine.”
