Ukraine's former interior minister apparently offed himself today rather than answer questions about the 2000 kidnapping and murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze.
Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post story:
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko suggested Friday that (Yuri) Kravchenko, who was fired by Kuchma in 2001, may not have killed himself and that his death might be an attempt to prevent others from being implicated in the conspiracy.
"If he really committed this act himself, it may indicate that he was afraid of taking responsibility for developments surrounding Gongadze’s murder," Tymoshenko said, according to the Interfax news agency. "If it was not a suicide, then it was an attempt to conceal the truth about the murder."
Ukraine’s Segodnya newspaper reported that Kravchenko had been put under official surveillance in December and ordered not to leave Ukraine.
This is interesting stuff (from the same article):
Gongadze wrote about alleged corruption in the (former president Leonid) Kuchma administration on an Internet news site and apparently infuriated the Kuchma administration with his reporting.
The tape recordings appeared to capture Kuchma talking to Kravchenko and saying that Gongadze should be "removed and thrown to the Chechens." In another excerpt, a voice similar to Kuchma’s ordered aides to "deal with" with Gongadze. And a Kuchma aide said, "Let loose Kravchenko to use alternative methods," according to the tapes, which were later authenticated by a private lab in the United States although the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office declared them to be fakes.
(Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Svyatoslav) Piskun said at a press conference Wednesday that Gongadze was kidnapped on a Kiev street on Sept. 16, 2000, and later strangled in the city. He corpse was decapitated, doused with gasoline and burned. His body was found in a ditch that November.
Here's an excerpt from a BBC story:
 Georgiy Gongadze was found dead in 2000 |
Just as new revelations in the Gongadze case were emerging, an equally brutal killing in the republic of Azerbaijan has also provoked concern about the safety of journalists in some former Soviet republics who defy the authorities.
On Wednesday an outspoken Azeri journalist, Elmar Huseynov, was shot dead near his apartment in Baku.
Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliev has called for swift action to find those responsible, but opposition figures have already accused the authorities themselves of wanting rid of Huseynov.
His magazine was produced privately after the government forbade state companies from printing it.
Media freedom
The killing has prompted one web newspaper in Russia to suggest that Azerbaijan "has found its own Gongadze".
The international journalists' association Reporters Without Borders has called for an independent enquiry into Mr Huseynov's murder, noting he was shot in the mouth, a gangland trademark for imposing silence.
Reporters Without Borders have in the past expressed serious concern about the intimidation and murder of independent journalists in other former Soviet republics, including Belarus and Russia.
The authorities normally blame these on criminal groups, but Reporters Without Borders suggest that in some cases at least local or federal officials may also have been involved.