UKRAINE: The discovery of Yuri Kravchenko's body is only the latest in a series of bizarre deaths of key officials of the former regime,writes Chris Stephen
Ukraine's former interior minister was found dead yesterday, hours before he was due to be questioned about the murder of an opposition journalist.
In a case already being dubbed Ukraine's Watergate, Yuri Kravchenko was found in his country house with two gunshot wounds in the early hours of the morning.
Mr Kravchenko was to have been questioned by prosecutors about the kidnap and murder five years ago of opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze.
The case caused a sensation after tapes were released apparently showing former president Leonid Kuchma ordering the killing of the journalist.
Prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said: "If he truly taken his own life, it means he was afraid of responsibility for those acts connected with Gongadze's murder."
Mr Kravchenko was found dead in a dacha, or summer-house, in Koncha Zaspa, near Kiev, where many ministers and tycoons have holiday homes.
Gongadze's death became a powerful rallying cry for the opposition in December's Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the reopening of the case has become the key test of the new government.
The journalist, who wrote for the internet newspaper Ukraine Pravda, disappeared in September 2000. A month later his headless body was found in woodland outside Kiev. Two months after the killing, the so-called "Kuchma tapes" were released by opposition parties.
The tapes caused a sensation. Hundreds of hours of conversations apparently involving the president were recorded on digital equipment by a disaffected bodyguard who later fled to the United States.
If authentic, these tapes paint a picture of a vastly corrupt regime.
But the key segment comes in a meeting between Mr Kuchma, his chief-of-staff Volodymyr Lytvyn and Mr Kravchenko. A voice sounding like Mr Kuchma's is heard ordering Mr Kravchenko to "drive him out, throw [ him] out, give him to the Chechens". Under international pressure, Mr Kuchma opened an investigation into the killing while in office, but closed it last year without a result.
All that changed in December when, after weeks of street protests, disputed elections were rerun and opposition leader Victor Yushchenko was elected president.
One of his first acts was to reopen the Gongadze case. And this week came a series of dramatic developments.
On Monday, Kiev newspapers reported that a witness in the case had been wounded in a grenade attack in Kiev hours after giving prosecutors information on the killers.
On Tuesday Mr Yushchenko announced that the killers, two policemen, had been caught. "Gongadze's murder has been solved," he told a press conference. "The killers have been detained and are now giving evidence."
The following day, with Kiev buzzing with rumours of new impending arrests, prosecutors said they had found the car used by the policemen to abduct Gongadze and that Mr Kravchenko, their boss, would be questioned yesterday.
With his death there are fears the trail may go cold.
"Kravchenko was a key witness," Olena Prytula, editor of Ukraine Pravda and former friend of Gongadze, said. "By killing him they interrupted the chain between those who killed Georgy and higher levels."
Attention is now focusing on Mr Kuchma himself, who left the country on February 15th to holiday at a hunting lodge in the Czech Republic and has no plans to return.
He has yet to be called in for questioning, but yesterday Ms Tymoshenko said secret service agents may be sent to the Czech Republic to guard the former president against assassination until he can testify.
"The question now arises - does Kuchma need to be guarded? " she asked. "If he asks for protection, under Ukraine's laws, he will be provided with it."
The discovery of Mr Kravchenko's body is only the latest in a series of bizarre mystery deaths of key officials of the former regime in recent months. On December 3rd a banker with close links to Mr Kuchma, Yuri Lyakh, was found stabbed through the neck with a paper opener at his country house.
Three weeks later a former secret service colonel, Vladimir Pavlenko, was found hanged in his apartment.
Then on December 28th, Mr Kuchma's transport minister, Herorhiy Kyrpa, was found shot dead in his summer house. Mr Krypa was blamed for organising the movement by train of tens of thousands of government supporters in an elaborate ballot-rigging operation in the November 21st presidential elections.
For Mr Kuchma, it seems only a matter of time before there is a court appearance and a need to answer some awkward questions.
Quite apart from the Gongadze case, he is expected to be summoned for hours of questioning about various apparently corrupt deals mentioned in the so-called Kuchma tapes. Meanwhile, parallel inquiries are going on into why his government allowed political allies and cronies to buy up key parts of state industry at knock-down prices in botched privatisation deals last year.
However, Mr Kuchma is not the only one likely to be tested. This slew of investigations will also put the spotlight on Mr Yushchenko and his new government.
His democratic credentials are likely to depend on a fair and open end to this and other cases.
As such, Mr Yushchenko's announcement, before a trial could be held, of the guilt of the two suspects will be a black mark.
A more difficult issue is the disruption this investigation may cause. Prosecutors examining the Gongadze murder, and those of several other journalists, are pushing into the upper echelons of state power.
Prosecutors say they will soon be able to identify the laboratory used to concoct the poison given to Mr Yushchenko, apparently by the secret service, shortly before last year's elections.
A decision to indict powerful security officials may cause further upheavals in a country still licking its wounds after the Orange Revolution.
The willingness of this new government to take on such powerful forces will be the key test of Ukraine's new democratic credentials as it pushes for European Union membership.
Ms Prytula thinks a full investigation is the only way for Ukraine to move forwards - no matter how many heads have to roll.
"We should go through this," she told The Irish Times, "even if it's going to be a little bit disruptive. It will be disruptive for a short period of time but after that things will be better."