Days after publicly accusing lawmaker David Zhvania of taking part in a plot to kill him with dioxin, President Yushchenko called on his former ally to cooperate fully with the stalled four-year old investigation
Days after publicly accusing lawmaker David Zhvania of taking part in a plot to kill him with dioxin, Ukrainian President
Victor Yushchenko called on his former ally – the godfather of his youngesest son – to cooperate fully with the stalled four-year-old investigation.
The president’s accusations and demands against Zhvania capped a wild week that started on July 22, when Yushchenko told a news conference he suspects Zhvania helped poison him at a Sept. 5, 2004, dinner during the presidential campaign.
Zhvania, at a July 25 press conference, refuted the allegations and said his conscience is clear.
But the president said that Zhvania helped instigate the dinner where Yushchenko is believed to have been poisoned.
“That ill-fated meeting occurred largely due to David Zhvania’s insistence and was organized by him,” Yushchenko told journalists, while on his way to meet prosecutors on July 28, the second time he met with investigators in July.
The dinner in question happened at the dacha of Volodymyr Satsyuk, former deputy head of the State Security Service of Ukraine.
“It is here, not far, on Podil that my security guards were dismissed and I went there without security. That was one of the conditions we had to meet when preparing to that meeting,” the president explained to journalists in front of the General Prosecutor’s office on July 28. “After all, he (Zhvania) was the only person from my side that accompanied me. And the meeting would have been impossible without him. I would like David Zhvania to respond to all these things.”
Insiders say Yushchenko has long suspected Zhvania of involvement in the near-fatal poisoning. But Yushchenko’s public accusations, nearly four years after he became gravely ill, come after Zhvania started challenging the official version of events.
Zhvania questioned the notion of a deliberate poisoning, suggesting that the president may have suffered from food poisoning. Zhvania also adamantly refuted claims Yushchenko may have been poisoned at Satsyuk’s dacha, in a recent interview with Ukrainska Pravda, a leading Ukrainian news portal.
Zhvania also cast suspicion on the validity of numerous expert blood and tissue tests showing that Yushchenko suffered from dioxin poisoning.
Zhvania has been summoned for questioning 10 times since Feb. 22, but has not complied, prosecutors said.
After Yushchenko made his accusations public, Zhvania released this statement: “Yushchenko’s actions place in question his compliance with the high position of the President of Ukraine. Violating the Constitution, particularly the part about presumption of innocence, is heavy grounds for starting the impeachment process.”
During his press conference on July 25, Zhvania denied any connection to Yushchenko’s poisoning. He said that he would urge parliament to establish an investigative commission on the poisoning case.
Zhvania is a member and financial backer for the People’s Self-Defense political party, which is within parliament’s pro-presidential Our Ukraine grouping. But, Zhvania said his party has been oppositionist to the president. And that’s why the president has turned against him, said Zhvania, who accuses Yushchenko’s office of trying to strip his Ukrainian citizenship through lawsuits.
While Zhvania’s name is at center stage in the revived case, other famous names are surfacing. Some are pointing at Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch in exile in London. Berezovsky said he donated some $45 million to support the Orange Revolution.
Zhvania was one of the gobetweens in the financial transactions, but misused the money, according to Berezovsky. One scenario is that Berezovsky – an enemy of Russia’s Vladimir Putin – had an interest in having Yushchenko harmed and making it look like the dirty work of the Kremlin, which supported Yushchenko’s rival, Victor Yanukovych, in the 2004 election.
“They said I poisoned him,” Berezovsky said in a recent interview with Ukrainian daily 24. “But I will not comment about such stupidity.”
Neither Yushchenko nor Zhvania are telling the truth, according to Berezovsky. “One thing is clear, however: they both have been deceiving Ukrainian society and keep on deceiving,” he added in the interview.
Dariya Orlova can be reached at [email protected] or 4964563 ext. 1105.
