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.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is leaning into his banking background as his country fights a trade war with the US, but his financial ties have also made him a target for conspiracy theories. Incorporating tropes familiar to followers of the far-right QAnon movement, conspiratorial social media posts about the Liberal leader have surged ahead of the country’s April 28 election. Posts range from false claims he recited a “satanic chant” at a campaign event to artificial intelligence (AI)-generated images of him in a pool with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “He’s the ideal person to be targeted here, for sure, due to
DISPUTE: Beijing seeks global support against Trump’s tariffs, but many governments remain hesitant to align, including India, ASEAN countries and Australia China is reaching out to other nations as the US layers on more tariffs, in what appears to be an attempt by Beijing to form a united front to compel Washington to retreat. Days into the effort, it is meeting only partial success from countries unwilling to ally with the main target of US President Donald Trump’s trade war. Facing the cratering of global markets, Trump on Wednesday backed off his tariffs on most nations for 90 days, saying countries were lining up to negotiate more favorable conditions. China has refused to seek talks, saying the US was insincere and that it
As Elon Musk called one of US President Donald Trump’s top economic aides a “moron,” the White House on Tuesday declared that “boys will be boys.” Musk and long-time Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro have been squabbling publicly over Trump’s decision to impose sweeping tariffs on most of its trading partners. The move has triggered a market sell-off and prompted analysts to wonder if the US is headed into a recession. “Look, these are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “Boys will be boys, and we
RSS