10/30/2003 | peter byrne

http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/politics/19309/

Trick or Treat?
By Peter Byrne, Kyiv Post Staff Writer
Oct 30, 2003 03:27


UkrInform

Interior Minister Mykola Bilokon, Prosecutor General Svyatoslav Pyskun and SBU head Ihor Smeshko held a news conference on Oct. 28 to refute allegations that police were involved in the abduction and murder of Internet journalist Georgy Gongadze.


The heads of the Interior Ministry, Prosecutor General’s Office and State Security Service, or SBU, came together on Oct. 28 for a hastily arranged press briefing to dismiss allegations that their agencies have any evidence that police officers were involved in a criminal gang allegedly involved in a slew of gruesome crimes.

The gang, known as the Werewolves, has been implicated in the September 2000 abduction and murder of Internet journalist Georgy Gongadze.

Prosecutor General Svyatoslav Pyskun joined Interior Minister Mykola Bilokon and SBU Head Ihor Smeshko at the event, which was the first time since Sept. 15, 2002 that the heads of all three law-enforcement agencies have met the press together, and one day before President Leonid Kuchma sacked Pyskun.

The Interior Ministry and SBU on Oct. 27 told the president that they were unable to substantiate allegations of police involvement with the Werewolves.

The press conference came days after the GPO announced the detention of Lieutenant General Oleskiy Pukach, the former chief of the Interior Ministry’s Criminal Investigations Bureau.

Unnamed sources cited in articles published during January 2001 directed attention to Pukach by claiming that agents of the police trailed Gongadze in July 2000, months before he vanished. Interior Ministry officials at the time declined comment, referring the Post to prosecutors, who refused to confirm or deny the allegations.

Pyskun attempted to clarify comments made on Oct. 24 by Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who said that Pukach had been detained in connection with the Gongadze investigation, and that it was “known for certain” that the Werewolves gang was comprised of active and former police officers, and continued to operate.

President Kuchma instructed the Interior Ministry and the SBU to investigate Shokin’s claim and report back within 72 hours.

Pyskun said that Shokin had used the words “known for certain” in error. Shokin, he said, was referring to evidence obtained from two gang members in custody whose confessions have not been confirmed “operationally or in writing.”

Prosecutors claim that Ihor Honcharov, a former senior police officer in Kyiv’s organized crime bureau, led the Werewolves gang.

Honcharov, who retired from the Interior Ministry in 1997, was arrested in May 2002 for allegedly masterminding more than a dozen contract killings committed by corrupt policemen working with criminal gangs.

Honcharov died of unknown causes while in police custody on Aug. 1. His remains were cremated and buried days later.

Vyacheslav Smorodinov, Honcharov’s attorney, said that Honcharov suffered from numerous post-traumatic disorders and provided the Post with a copy of a medical report on Honcharov’s injuries issued last Nov. 2.

The document quotes Honcharov as saying he sustained his injuries when police beat him on June 11, 2002. The “mechanism of the trauma,” according to Honcharov, was “a direct blow (or blows) to the stomach.” The GPO says it has not yet been able to determine why Honcharov died.

Smorodinov said he asked prison authorities and the GPO to investigate the mistreatment of his client on numerous occasions, but never received a reply.

Honcharov’s posthumous letters, obtained by the Post in August and subsequently authenticated by prosecutors, provided fresh evidence implicating senior law enforcement officials in Gongadze’s death.

In one letter, dated March 5, 2003, Honcharov said that Yuri Nesterov, a criminal known to him, helped two employees of Kyiv’s organized crime bureau kidnap, torture and kill Gongadze in a warehouse in Kyiv’s Moskovsky district.

“The men demanded that Gongadze name the person who ‘ordered’ an article to be written about [parliament Deputy] Oleksandr Volkov and the president,” Honcharov wrote, referring to a 19-page investigative report re-published on Gongadze’s Web site, Ukrainska Pravda, on Sept. 5, 2000.

The article, “Volkov Without a Fleece,” contained previously unreported information about Volkov’s relationship with Kuchma, the president’s close associates and family.

“The men slowly strangled Gongadze by squeezing his windpipe to obtain the information,” Honcharov wrote. He named General Major Mykola Astion, then head of Kyiv’s organized crime division, as the police officer who oversaw the operation to abduct Gongadze.

“Astion approached me after I was arrested and promised to set me free if I turned over material evidence in my possession about the Gongadze case,” wrote Honcharov.

In other letters, Honcharov claimed to have worked with SBU officers at the behest of then National Security and Defense Secretary Evhen Marchuk to collect evidence about Gongadze’s disappearance.

The whereabouts of Nesterov are unknown. Astion was transferred from Kyiv to head Yalta’s police department in July 2002. Marchuk has denied knowing Honcharov.

Interior Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Zarubtsky told the Post on Oct. 28 that the ministry knows nothing about police involvement or complicity in Gongadze’s disappearance. He added that it is “inappropriate” for police to learn from the media – rather than from the General Prosecutor directly – about the alleged ties.

“We will look into information provided [by prosecutors] about the Werewolves gang and publish the results of our investigation,” Zarubytsky said.

Marina Ostapenko, a spokeswoman for Smeshko, said that the SBU was unable to gather information that could corroborate allegations that policemen belong to the Werewolves.

“The SBU reported to Kuchma that these charges are groundless,” she said.