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.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
Burmese President Min Aung Hlaing yesterday cut all prisoners’ sentences by one-sixth, a blanket measure that a source close to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi said would further shorten her detention. Aung San Suu Kyi has been sequestered since a 2021 military coup, but the senior member of her dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) party said that while her term had been reduced, her remaining sentence is still unclear. “We also don’t know exactly how many years she has left,” the source told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The military toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government
RSS