Former Interior Minister Found Dead in Kiev

Former Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko was found shot to death in an apparent suicide Friday, just hours before he was to meet with prosecutors investigating the possible involvement of senior Ukrainian officials in the 2000 murder and beheading of a journalist.

Kravchenko, who headed Ukraine’s national police forces under former President Leonid D. Kuchma, was found dead in an outbuilding near his home, with one or possibly two bullet wounds inflicted by his own gun, authorities said.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said there was reason to believe that the 53-year-old former minister’s death was linked to the 2000 strangulation, beheading and gasoline torching of Internet journalist Georgi Gongadze, who frequently reported on alleged corruption in the Kuchma government.

If Kravchenko “died at his own hand, this could mean that he was afraid to take responsibility for the events surrounding Gongadze’s death,” Tymoshenko said. “If it’s not -- and I don’t know the details and can’t comment -- it’s an attempt to prevent true information about Gongadze’s death from emerging.”

Deputy Interior Minister Petro Koliada said preliminary findings indicated that “there is no doubt that Kravchenko committed suicide.”

Asked if there was a suicide note, he replied: “There was something, but I’m not prepared to say what.”

The case has raised a storm here in the Ukrainian capital because the former interior minister was one of the few people who could have proved or refuted long-standing allegations that Kuchma had ordered the journalist’s killing. The former president has strongly denied any involvement.

“Before God, before the people, before my conscience, I’m clean,” Kuchma told reporters Friday in the Czech Republic, where he had been seeking medical treatment at a health spa for several weeks.

He also denied that Kravchenko was involved in the journalist’s death. “I knew him well. He would have never given that criminal order,” the former president said. “Few people could have withstood the terrible pressure” Kravchenko was under in recent weeks.

Kuchma was expected to return to Kiev over the weekend, and said he would be prepared to meet with prosecutors.

The head of a parliamentary commission investigating corruption, Hryhoriy Omelchenko, repeated on Friday the results of his panel’s inquiry. He said the findings showed that Kuchma had been a “co-organizer” of the slaying along with Kravchenko and other aides.

A former police officer, who later was apparently beaten to death in prison, said in a letter from jail that a gang of police officers had abducted and killed Gongadze on the orders of Kravchenko, who in turn acted on the orders of Kuchma.

A series of audio tapes that were purportedly recorded by a former presidential bodyguard and never conclusively authenticated includes an alleged conversation between Kuchma and Kravchenko about Gongadze, who the president complained “is continuing to mouth off.”

“I will take care of him, Leonid. I will do it. He will be sorry,” the voice identified as Kravchenko’s is heard to reply.

Since Kuchma left office in December, the former bodyguard has refused to hand over the original copies of the tapes to the prosecutor-general’s office. Kravchenko could have testified to their authenticity or denied it.

“Kravchenko was the key figure in the investigation of the Gongadze murder. And his absence now will stall the investigation, and drive it into a corner,” said Volodymyr Boiko, a journalist who has reported extensively on the reporter’s slaying.

“With Kravchenko gone, there are only small fries left in the case -- those people who directly executed the murder, not those who commissioned it. And the rest can never be proven.”

Authorities announced this week that they had arrested the perpetrators in the slaying and knew who had ordered the killing. Prosecutor-General Svyatoslav Piskun said the killers were police officers in the criminal investigations directorate.

According to witnesses, Piskun said, the journalist died Sept. 16, 2000, the day he was abducted. Gongadze got into a car he apparently thought was a taxi, and three police officers jumped in behind him, the prosecutor-general told reporters.

“They drove him out of Kiev, beating him along the way,” Piskun said. “On arriving at the spot, they tied his hands. Then ... they killed him, doused him with petrol and set his body on fire.”

The headless corpse was found several days later.

None of the officers arrested have been identified, but authorities confirmed that they have issued an international warrant for the former head of the external surveillance department of the Interior Ministry, Gen. Oleksiy Pukach.

The authorities also said this week that a fourth individual had been warned not to leave Kiev. That man, they confirmed Friday, was Kravchenko.

Several political leaders were critical of Piskun’s announcement Wednesday that he planned to interview the former interior minister on Friday-- an incitement, some said, to suicide or murder.

“He told the whole world that Kravchenko was to be questioned today. In this way, he either provoked Kravchenko [to commit suicide] or his murderers to kill him,” a conservative parliamentarian, Oleh Tyahnybok, told Ukraine’s Kanal 5 TV.

Times staff writer Murphy reported from Moscow and special correspondent Mycio from Kiev.