The mystery deepens in the Ukraine, where the Interior Minister has been found dead. It’s tantilizing:
Ukraine’s former interior minister was found dead of an apparent suicide at his home on the day he was to testify about the killing of an opposition journalist, an official said.
Sort of coincidental, isn’t it? Do you suppose he could have named a bigger name behind it? Just a thought. More:
Yuri Kravchenko had been accused by opposition political forces of being involved in the killing of Heorhiy Gongadze. The former minister had been expected to give testimony to prosecutors on Friday about Gongadze’s death.
Inna Kisel, a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry, said Kravchenko appeared to have committed suicide. She referred all other questions to officials at the General Prosecutor’s Office, who couldn’t be immediately reached.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Svyatoslav Piskun said Wednesday that investigators had identified all four people involved in Gongadze’s 2000 slaying and knew who was the mastermind. He refused to identify the person who ordered the killing.
Two of the suspected killers were in custody, one was under orders not to leave Kiev and the fourth was on an international wanted list, he said. All were employed by Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, Piskun said.
And if you think government officials treat working journalists poorly in the U.S., just read this:
Gongadze, who wrote about alleged high-level corruption, was abducted in Kiev in September 2000. His decapitated body was found months later buried in a forest outside the capital.
His death sparked months of protests against former President Leonid Kuchma, who the opposition alleged was involved in the killing. He denies involvement.
Will this be the end of this story?
UPDATE: It isn’t easy being a journalist these days in parts of what was the Soviet Union, is it? Instapundit notes this demonstration going on elsewhere, reported by the BBC:
Thousands of people have turned out for the funeral of murdered independent reporter Elmar Huseynov in Azerbaijan.
Huseynov, widely known for his outspoken criticism of the Azerbaijani authorities, was shot outside his flat in the capital, Baku, on Wednesday.
Opposition leader Ali Kerimli told the crowds that the government should resign unless it can track down the killers within the next two weeks.
International organisations and foreign governments have condemned the killing.
Huseynov’s family – echoing a warning from President Ilham Aliyev – had urged the opposition not to turn the funeral into an anti-government rally….
Huseynov, who was one of the country’s best-known journalists, was shot dead in his apartment building.
Azeri human rights groups have linked his murder to his role as editor of the magazine Monitor, which had been closed down several times for running articles critical of politicians and businessmen.
Residents in the apartment block say the electricity went off and phones stopped working in the building at the time of the murder, leading many Azeris to believe it was a well-prepared attack.
Do we see a PATTERN here in these murders?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.