Posted on 10/15/2002 3:54:17 PM PDT by knighthawk
A leading Ukrainian judge, Yuri Vasylenko, has opened a criminal case against the country's president, Leonid Kuchma after accusations that he violated 11 articles of the country's criminal code.
Mr Kuchma is alleged to have been involved in the sale of sophisticated Kolchuga radar systems to Iraq.
He is also accused by political opponents of ordering the murder of an investigative journalist, Georgiy Gongadze, who wrote about corruption in high places.
"I had no grounds not to open the criminal case against the president," Mr Vasylenko said before a news conference by opposition leaders.
The opposition has also accused Mr Kuchma's administration of endemic corruption, abuse of office, and vote-rigging during elections.
We demand that he should stop carrying out his duties until the end of the investigation," the leader of the Communist Party, Petro Simonenko, said at the news conference on Tuesday.
The judge's announcement came just three days after opposition lawmakers, backed by some 20,000 protesters, laid out their charges against Kuchma at a "people's tribunal" in downtown Kiev.
Repercussions
On Monday, a team of 13 American and British arms experts began investigating the US accusations that Kuchma approved the sale of a Kolchuga radar system to Iraq for $100m.
The accusations were based on a July 2000 recording by one of Mr Kuchma's former bodyguards, Mykola Melnichenko, in which he is allegedly heard approving the deal with Iraq.
The US State Department said last month that it had confirmed the authenticity of the recording.
President Kuchma continues to deny all the accusations.
"They are built on sand and not on anything solid. That is why there are no Kolchugas on the Iraqi sand," he said on Monday as Western experts starting visited Ukrainian military units.
Their goal is to check that all the systems produced at the Topaz military plant in Ukraine can be accounted for.
If the investigators discover the allegations are true, there will be serious repercussions.
BBC correspondent Jonathan Charles says Mr Kuchma already has plenty of enemies inside Ukraine - but offending what were once his supporters outside the country could prove to be a costly error.
If people want on or off this list, please let me know.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.