The parliamentary ad hoc investigative commission seeking the cause of the illness of People’s Deputy and presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko has fallen short of expectations. After completing a certain amount of work, about which commission chairman Volodymyr Syvkovych reported from the Verkhovna Rada rostrum last Thursday evening, the parliamentary “investigators” are by all accounts still as far from being able to provide any answers as they were from the very outset. Their conclusions speak for themselves: Mr. Syvkovych said that “the commission investigating the poisoning of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko has no sufficient grounds to claim that he was deliberately poisoned or that there was no poisoning at all.”
Although for several days various factions were clamoring for the investigative commission to issue an interim report, the final decision to hear the inquiry’s information was made no earlier than Thursday morning. Just minutes before Mr. Syvkovych took the microphone, the Our Ukraine faction proposed that the report be deferred. Faction member Viktor Pynzenyk revealed that the Austrian clinic had sent materials that the commission had not yet studied and suggested that its members be given an opportunity to scrutinize these materials. However, only 197 out of 429 registered deputies voted for this proposal.
“I want to say again that one of the Our Ukraine leaders approached me today in [Speaker] Volodymyr Lytvyn’s office and said that I was playing up to somebody or dancing to someone’s tune. I can assure you that I’ve never danced to anyone’s tune or given anybody in this room any grounds to say so for all the time that I’ve been here,” Mr. Syvkovych pointed out at the beginning of his speech. “The commission has been working hard in the past two weeks. Our aim was to find out the truth no matter how bitter it might be — either for the government or the opposition,” he continued. “The commission has held nine sessions attended by the eight persons we invited to testify, namely, People’s Deputy Chervonenko; Officer Pliuta of the State Personal Security Department and Viktor Yushchenko’s personal bodyguard; chairman Smeshko of the State Security Service of Ukraine; his first deputy Satsiuk; Viktor Yushchenko’s personal physician Dr. Shyshkin; Yushchenko’s campaign manager, People’s Deputy Zinchenko; and People’s Deputy Tretiakov.
“The commission sent out 59 queries, to which 24 responses were sent. On September 21 the Prosecutor-General’s Office of Ukraine opened a criminal case under Article 112 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code, ‘An Attempt on the Life of a Statesman.’ The commission was allowed to study the materials of this case. Unfortunately, the commission’s work was jeopardized by the unwillingness of some people’s deputies to cooperate with us and by provocative attempts to compromise some of the commission members.
“The inquiries that were made give us no grounds to claim that there was an attempt on Viktor Yushchenko’s life. Our inquiries also give us no grounds to say that there was no external influence on Viktor Yushchenko’s organism by way of a poison or some other substance,” Mr. Syvkovych said.
When his statements raised a ruckus in the hall, the rapporteur said, “If there is a person in this room today who can prove what Viktor Yushchenko said-that somebody from this country poisoned him-let this person come out and confirm this.”
Mr. Syvkovych noted in his report that the commission was surprised at the behavior of the Rudolfinerhaus Clinic doctors. “Contrary to medical ethics, the clinic changed its conclusions several times, submitted contradictory documents, and issued conflicting public statements,” Mr. Syvkovych said. “According to the prosecution service, the clinic is a private institution specializing in cardiovascular diseases. The clinic has no special laboratory for intoxication tests. Under Austrian law, all cases of poisoning must be recorded in the Department of Forensic Medicine. But neither Professor Korpan nor the Rudolfinerhaus Clinic officially contacted the police or the Department of Forensic Medicine on September 10-18 in connection with Yushchenko’s poisoning,” Mr. Syvkovych added. In his words, the clinic’s doctors failed to give the parliamentary investigative commission and Ukrainian law-enforcement agencies all the required information. “These and other mistakes and contradictory actions of the clinic force us to cast doubt on the professionalism and impartiality of its staff,” the commission chairman pointed out.
Mr. Syvkovych announced that the investigative commission demanded that “all necessary medical examinations and procedures be carried out in Ukraine with the assistance, if need be, of authoritative experts from prestigious foreign medical institutions.”
He also regretted that Viktor Yushchenko had publicly warned about criminal liability for spreading information about his health without his consent. In Mr. Syvkovych’s view, Mr. Yushchenko’s declaration implies that is pointless for the commission to continue work. Moreover, the commission has so far been unable to interview Mr. Yushchenko, Mr. Syvkovych disclosed. Yet, “while we can blame poor health for Viktor Yushchenko’s conduct, we cannot understand why People’s Deputy David Zhvaniya, who was with Yushchenko at the SBU head’s country retreat, refused to cooperate,” the commission chairman noted.
However, not all the commission members agree with these conclusions. The commission’s deputy chairman Serhiy Shevchuk maintained, among other things, that the Ukrainian parliamentarians who visited the Vienna clinic received all the required documents and videotaped information.
The parliamentary debate on this issue ended on quite an unexpected note: the Verkhovna Rada vice-speaker and Yushchenko’s campaign manager Oleksandr Zinchenko read out a letter from the Rudolfinerhaus Clinic to Mr. Yushchenko. “We have come to the clear-cut conclusion that you have a non-typical illness, which gives us grounds to suspect the use of a biological weapon,” the document says. The senders ask Yushchenko for permission to engage an expert in “biological weapons and warfare.” The clinic’s president, Prof. Michael Zimpfer and a doctor from the same clinic, Mykola Korpan, allegedly signed the letter.
On the same day Dr. Korpan told a 5th Channel live program that the official version that there are no objective grounds to confirm the poisoning version is still valid, although “such grounds have not been ruled out.” Commenting on the allegation made by Mr. Yushchenko’s campaign manager Oleksandr Zinchenko that a biological weapon or certain components of such a weapon may have been used against the presidential candidate, Dr. Korpan said, “There are certain grounds to think along these lines.” Commenting on the latest information on this matter, the doctor noted that the clinic has a considerable amount of evidence “that makes it possible to corroborate one version or another.” As for Mr. Yushchenko, Dr. Korpan thinks he will be able to resume work in Ukraine in the nearest future.
INCIDENTALLY
Last Friday the Regions of Ukraine parliamentary faction’s press service reported an incident that occurred at the 5th Channel studios, where People’s Deputy Valery Konovaliuk was invited on October 7 to acquaint viewers with the position of the parliamentary commission charged with investigating the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko. Konovaliuk was supposed to have a debate with Mykola Polishchuk from the Our Ukraine faction. The report says, however, that Polishchuk did not ask him any questions-”He didn’t care what the Regions of Ukraine faction member thought.” This turn of events led to Mr. Konovaliuk leaving the studios, the report concludes.
