Ukraine’s upper chamber of parliament has asked the country’s prosecutor general to launch a criminal case against former President Leonid Kuchma for his involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a journalist

Ukraine’s upper chamber of parliament has asked the country’s prosecutor general to launch a criminal case against former President Leonid Kuchma for his involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a journalist. The Rada backed President Viktor Yushchenko, who opposed the Kuchma-backed Viktor Yanukovich. One of its deputies, Grigory Omelchenko, is accusing Kuchma of organizing the kidnapping of journalist Grigory Gongadze and organizing an assassination attempt on deputy Alexander Yelshkevich, the Russian Information Agency Novosti reported. Gongadze disappeared in September 2000, and his beheaded body was found in November. That month, Socialist party leader Alexander Moroz aired a recording of an alleged conversation between Kuchma and the head of the Interior Ministry in which Kuchma ordered authorities to “take care” of the journalist. But experts later said that the recording was a fake, and it was impossible to identify the speakers. This fall the Rada accused Kuchma’s government, which included the presidential candidate Prime Minister Yanukovich, of rigging the votes in an attempt to keep Yushchenko from winning the presidential election against Yanukovich.