Renat Kuzmin, Ukraine’s former top deputy prosecutor general who fled the nation after the EuroMaidan Revolution, said that a $1 billion bribe was paid to drop murder charges against ex-President Leonid Kuchma.
A long trail of evidence has tied Kuchma, an authoritarian president during a 10-year reign that ended in 2004, to the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze on Sept. 16, 2000.
Kuchma has always denied the charges. Responding to the latest allegations, Kuchma told to the Kyiv Post that Kuzmin’s accusations are “yet another dirty lie.”
“In 2013, we received the information that a colossal $1 billion bribe was paid to close the criminal case against Kuchma,” Kuzmin said via skype during the TV show “The Right For Power” on 1+1 channel on Dec. 18.
Kuzmin also said that those who paid the bribe also wanted him fired.
Kuzmin’s reputation is also tarnished by his aggressive pursuit of criminal cases against the political enemies of overthrown President Viktor Yanukovych, ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko chief among them.
The Interior Ministry put Kuzmin on wanted list in June. He is accused of the illegal arrest of former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko in 2010. Kuzmin, however, managed to leave the country by that time and his whereabouts remain unknown.
In 2011, the Kyiv Pechersk District Court closed the criminal case against Kuchma. It ruled that tapes recorded by Kuchma’s former guard Mykola Melnychenko which reveal alleged conversations of Kuchma ordering subordinates to eliminate Gongadze, were obtained illegally and can’t be the evidence.
Kuzmin said that during his tenure at prosecutor’s general office the tapes were accepted as legal evidence following the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights.
As of now, the top person who is paying the penalty over Gongadze case is former police general Oleksiy Pukach, who in 2013 was sentenced to life imprisonment after he confessed in the murder. Myroslava Gongadze, journalist’s wife appealed the ruling in February 2013, as she wanted those who ordered the murder to be brought to justice. The trial on Pukach and court hearings on the appeal were closed for public.
Ukraine’s head of Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Valentyn Nalyvaichenko who also participated in the Dec. 18 TV show that he would like all the materials of the case to be disclosed. He said he plans to request from the Kyiv Court of Appeals to сonsider the appeal to Pukach’s verdict publicly.
“This insidious job of people from former security services and Interior Ministry has to be revealed. The law should ban anyone from working
against journalists,” Nalyvaichenko said.
The SBU is ready to assist with further investigation of Gongadze case, according to him.
Kuchma’s family, including Pinchuk who’s wealth is estimated at $3.2 billion, remains influential and still has influence on many public officials, Kuzmin said. “This family in particular always had influence on president Yanukovych. Many Ukrainian oppositionists know very well the role of Kuchma in their fates. Even now this
family is trying to influence all most important events in Ukraine,” he said.
“I hope that President (Petro) Poroshenko, Prime Minister (Arseniy) Yatsenyuk and his ministers will be able to resist this pressure,” he said.
Kuzmin said that he is ready to provide any help he can to the current leadership for further investigation of the case.
Observers said that the interview at 1+1 channel, which is owned by oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, is a part of a smear campaign against Pinchuk ahead of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit in London, which is due to start next year.
Pinchuk in March 2013 filed a suit at London’s High Court against Kolomoisky and his business partner Hennadiy Boholyubov, claiming that they breached
a contract to privatize on his behalf and manage the Kryvy Rih Iron Ore Plant.
Pinchuk claims the assets are now worth $1 billion and he is also owed $1 billion in unpaid dividends. “They (Pinchuk and Kolomoisky) will continue to say hello to each other
through television,” lawmaker and former investigative journalist Serhiy Leshchenko said on his Facebook page.
Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected]. Deputy Chief Editor Katya Gorchinskaya contributed to this story.
