New president makes what the old couldn’t.
By Yuri Kulikov
KIEV, Ukraine (Reuters) - President Viktor Yushchenko said Tuesday police had caught the killers of a journalist whose murder five years ago plunged Ukraine into crisis, and accused his predecessor of covering up the crime.
The discovery of the headless corpse of Internet reporter Georgiy Gongadze in 2000 tarnished the image of Ukraine's then-president Leonid Kuchma. The murder remained a rallying cry for liberals and was one of the focal points of protests that helped propel Yushchenko to power last December.
"I can declare here that Gongadze's murder has been solved. The killers have been detained and are now giving evidence," Yushchenko said in a statement to reporters.
"The former authorities not only lacked the political will to solve this murder. They covered up for the murderers."
Yushchenko had described finding Gongadze's killers as a matter of honor.
The president gave no details of the investigation into Gongadze's murder, but said his death had been "terrifying." He said he had long been perplexed that officials could have been involved in the murder and "display such animal behavior."
The gruesome murder of Gongadze, the editor of Internet Web Site Ukrainska Pravda, was the most high-profile criminal case since Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
It was a turning point for Kuchma, whose 10 years in office were laden with scandal, including later allegations that he sold arms illegally to Iraq while Saddam Hussein was in power.
Gongadze's murder triggered months of protests, weathered by Kuchma for a time. But the scandal dogged his later years in office, which ended in January when the "Orange Revolution" swept Yushchenko to power.
SECRET TAPES
Kuchma was linked to the murder by his former bodyguard, who fled Ukraine with hundreds of hours of tapes he recorded secretly in his office. In one excerpt, a voice similar to Kuchma's was heard giving an order to "deal with" the reporter.
Kuchma has always denied any connection with the crime, and no convincing evidence of his involvement has ever been presented.
Although Yushchenko clearly linked his predecessor's administration to the murder, it was not immediately clear if prosecutions of top Kuchma officials would follow.
A parliamentary committee last year called for criminal proceedings against Kuchma as the likely suspect. Kuchma is now on an extended holiday in the Czech resort of Karlovy Vary.
Gongadze was abducted in the center of Kiev in September 2000. His decapitated and mutilated body was found in a wood outside Kiev two months later and subjected to several forensic tests before prosecutors were able to identify it.
The corpse remains unburied, kept in a Kiev morgue.
Fifth television channel reported Tuesday that a general and two police officers had been detained in connection with the murder. The SBU security service and prosecutors declined to comment.
The channel also reported that Gongadze's severed head was found near the Dnieper river, but the SBU denied this.
A key task for the investigators was now to track down and punish those responsible, Yushchenko said.
Gongadze's mother Lesya told 1+1 television she would sue prosecutors for the torment she suffered from their failure to solve the case. "I believe the prosecutor general's office will be punished," she said, blinking back tears.
Yushchenko said Ukraine would set up a National Investigation Bureau to reveal the truth behind dozens of high-profile murders which have damaged Ukraine's image.
"In every region throughout Ukraine we should demonstrate there is rule of law," he said.
