Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka of Ukraine proved to be as good as his word (after making his promise on the Inter Channel Friday night, live). On Monday, the PGO appealed against the Pechersk District Court’s ruling dismissing the Kuchma case on charges of complicity in the murder of journalist Heorhii Gongadze. Media people learned the news from Yurii Boichenko, head of the PGO press service who stated: “The Prosecutor General’s Office has filed an appeal against the Pechersk court ruling in the Kuchma case.”
Serhii Leshchenko, a journalist with the Ukrainska Pravda (www.pravda.com.ua), writes in his article “Saving (non-)governmental Kuchma”: “On March 25 this year Kyiv hosted a soiree in memory of Boris Yeltsin. This event was attended by two ex-presidents of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma. Kravchuk greeted Kuchma, saying, ‘I’ve just returned from a trip to London…’ [to which Kuchma replied:] ‘See, you can travel to London and I’m forbidden to travel anywhere outside Ukraine!’ Kuchma waved his hands hopelessly (he had recently been served a court order forbidding him to leave Ukraine until the end of the legal proceedings in his case).”
The soiree was followed by a stand-up buffet party and all those present could watch Liudmyla Kuchma desperately trying to keep her man’s booze consumption under control (she would even sniff at his glass to make sure there was no alcoholic beverage in it). In the end, Leonid Kuchma left the party being hardly able to walk unaided.
Four days earlier, an event took place in his life few in Ukraine could have seen in their worst nightmares. He found himself charged with complicity in a murder case, on personal orders from Renat Kuzmin, First Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
Vast resources were used to whitewash Leonid Kuchma, particularly in the media realm. Viktor Pinchuk, his son-in-law, enlisted the Horshenin Institute, Euro RSCG (France), and the US strategist, Douglas Schoen.
Russia’s film director Andrei Konchalovsky was also involved. He started on a production about a US conspiracy against a reformist Ukrainian president. Ukraine’s ICTV Channel (owned by Pinchuk) would now and then play its own production entitled Zmova (Collusion).
It is anyone’s guess how many channels other than the official ones were engaged by Pinchuk, but he finally got what he wanted. On December 14, 2011, Justice Halyna Suprun [of the Pechersk District Court] dropped the criminal charges against Leonid Kuchma. Interestingly, she did so on Viktor Pinchuk’s birthday.
Ukrainska Pravda tried to find out what was behind Justice Suprun’s ruling.
MANIPULATION 1
Criminal proceedings against Kuchma were commenced on March 21, 2011. Investigation was completed on April 24, then the parties were supplied copies of the case files prior to forwarding the case to a court of law which would consider the merits of the case.
On June 30, 2011, the SBU secret police of Ukraine filed a statement with the Constitutional Court that would reduce the Melnychenko tapes to nil.
The Constitutional Court issued its ruling on October 21, one that suited Kuchma. It read: “Prosecution cannot rely on evidence … obtained by deliberate acts aimed at receiving it and recording it, using means and methods envisaged by Ukrainian criminal investigative legislation, by a person who is not legally entitled to carry out such investigative activities.”
This Constitutional Court ruling would seem to help Kuchma’s acquittal by prohibiting [the only] incriminating evidence.
It did and the prejudicial inquiry was over on October 21, with any subsequent appeals against the court ruling prohibited (as per Article 236-7 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine). But then strange events started taking place. On November 16, Kuchma’s defense counsels filed a statement with the Pechersk District Court, requesting that their client’s case be closed.
On November 17, Justice Suprun ruled that criminal proceedings be commenced — this considering that the parties concerned were acquainting themselves with the case files, that the prejudicial inquiry had been completed.
During a court hearing on November 21, the parties tried to figure out whether or not the investigation had been resumed. All agreed that, as of November 17, the pretrial investigation was over. Representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office Dmytro Basov, however, made an oral statement in court to the effect that the investigation had resumed on November 21, in other words on the date of the first court session.
And so investigation was not resumed on November 17. Justice Suprun, instead of starting proceedings as per Kuchma’s counsel’s complaint, ought to have dismissed it, considering that the Criminal Code of Ukraine allows such complaints to be acted upon only until the end of the pretrial investigation.
Back in the summer of 2011, Justice Suprun refused to close the Tymoshenko gas case. This cost the ex-prime minister seven years in jail.
MANIPULATION 2
When pronouncing the Kuchma case closed, Justice Suprun referred to the abovementioned ruling of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine that outlawed Melnychenko’s tapes.
Under the law, in that phase of proceedings, the judge had the right to assess the results of the investigation, never the evidence.
In other words, lawful evidence that triggers proceedings relates to the investigation, whether or not obtained by acting by the book.
Justice Suprun could have used her formula (“…audio recordings of conversations obtained by M.I. Melnychenko…”) only if Melnychenko had been authorized to collect such evidence by any of the investigating officers in the Kuchma case.
Melnychenko’s status was different, of course. He was a witness. In fact, by assessing Melnychenko’s tapes, Justice Suprun assessed the evidence submitted by the prosecution, which was legally inadmissible at that stage of the proceedings; she could have done so only when considering the merits of the Kuchma case.
MANIPULATION 3
There is another subtle double standard on the part of Justice Suprun, as subtle as in previous cases, caused in the Kuchma case by the following absolutely inexplicable statement in Renat Kuzmin’s directive to commence criminal proceedings against Leonid Kuchma. It is on the final page and it reads: “Therefore, the statements made by Melnychenko, Moroz, etc., as well as the identification of an apparent crime, made by the prosecutor, are reason enough for subjecting Kuchma to criminal prosecution.”
Kuzmin’s usage of “statements” is legally wrong, considering that Moroz and Melnychenko actually offered their stories and the latter were used to open the Kuchma case. Kuzmin should have written “statements made by Moroz and Melnychenko for the press.” As it was, Justice Suprun zeroed in on “statements” because Kuzmin’s ambiguity allowed her to do just that. She interpreted “statement” as defined by Article 94, Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine, precisely as “a statement on an act of crime.” Such statements are to be submitted to law enforcement agencies and they warrant criminal proceedings.
However, each such statement envisages special procedures, with the person who signs it being cautioned against perjury, whereupon explanations are selected and pre-investigation checks are assigned.
It was in this legal context that Justice Suprun treated Kuzmin’s “statements,” making Moroz and Melnychenko “declarants” in the Kuchma case. This lady played the show her own way and in the end summoned Moroz and Melnychenko’s counsels – as those of the declarants – to a hearing dealing with Kuchma’s defense’s complaint, so as to finally turn down their statements as being executed the wrong way.
KUCHMA ISN’T ACQUITTED
Justice Suprun’s closure of the Kuchma case doesn’t mean that the man is innocent; it only reveals Renat Kuzmin’s [professional] errors when warranting criminal prosecution.
What will happen to Justice Suprun will show whether or not the rigged Kuchma trial was pulled off with Kuzmin’s knowledge and consent. Kuzmin, as a member of the Supreme Council of Justice, is entitled to order this lady checked out, all the way. If he doesn’t, the inference will be self-apparent.
As of the end of the year 2011, Leonid Kuchma has maintained a tangible positional advantage.
Despite the heavy blow dealt to the Melnychenko tapes as the key incriminating evidence, there is a way to make them legit. There is the Melnychenko criminal case. Should he muster up the courage, he could appear in court and say he had made the tapes as the last resort. Then the tapes could serve as evidence for his defense.
Another reason the Kuchma family can’t rest on the laurels is that the current Kuchma rescue scenario is strongly reminiscent of the one used by Yulia Tymoshenko in 2004-05. At the time she even had the Supreme Court ruling that all cases incriminating her be closed, yet those very cases were reopened six years later.
A very bad precedent.
