Ukraine's former interior minister was found dead yesterday Friday, hours before he was due to be questioned over the murder of an investigative journalist.
The body of Yuri Kravchenko was found by his wife at his dacha outside Kiev. Local media reported he was holding a pistol and had a bullet wound to his temple.
President Viktor Yushchenko suggested that he had killed himself after he had been implicated in the killing of Georgy Gongadze, 31, whose decapitated corpse was found in a forest in 2000.
Interfax news agency reported that Kravchenko left behind a suicide note, in which he blamed the former president Leonid Kuchma and his entourage for his death. He said in the note that he was taking his life to save his family from"attacks."
Some observers, however, suggested that the former minister might have been murdered to prevent him exposing accomplices in the current administration. Unconfirmed reports said he had two gunshot wounds to his head.
Yushchenko promised a full investigation, but implied that the former minister had been overcome by guilt and taken his life.
"Every person has their own personal tribunal," he told journalists. "Every person has a choice: To go and cooperate with the prosecutor, to give evidence, to stand up for their rights and honor. Or there is a second option: To pronounce one's own sentence."
Police in Kiev announced this week that they had detained four men responsible for Gongadze's killing. A day later, prosecution officials said the mastermind behind the killing had been identified.
Kravchenko was due to be interrogated at 10am Friday, but his body was discovered earlier that morning. It was not clear how long he had been dead. The 54-year-old was interior minister from 1995 to 2001 under former president Kuchma, who some accuse of ordering Gongadze's murder. Secretly recorded tapes that emerged after the journalist's death appear to capture the two politicians complaining about his reporting and discussing ways to eradicate him.
Kuchma denies involvement, saying the tapes were falsified.
Gongadze's death prompted months of protests against Kuchma, who is currently at a spa in the Czech Republic. Last night, Ukrainian television reported him as saying he would return to Kiev today after hearing of the former minister's death. Prosecutors refused to say yesterday whether the former president would be questioned over the case.
One pro-government MP, Stepan Khmara, called for him to be "taken into protective custody immediately." Others said Kravchenko should have been detained so that his testimony was guaranteed to be heard in court.
Politicians close to President Yushchenko said Kravchenko had killed himself out of shame. But others suggested he could have been killed or pushed to suicide by someone from Yushchenko's circle who was previously close to Kuchma and knew they might be exposed if Kravchenko talked.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS