Criminal case opens against Ukrainian president

A judge today opened a criminal case against embattled Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, a day after British and US experts began probing the sale of a radar system to Iraq.

Kuchma is accused of being directly involved in the sale of the military technology to Baghdad – which is banned by the UN – and in the murder of an investigative journalist who crusaded against high level political corruption.

“I had no grounds not to open the criminal case against the president,” said Judge Yuriy Vasylenko.

The announcement came just three days after opposition MPs, backed by about 20,000 protesters, laid out their charges against Kuchma at a “people’s tribunal” in central Kiev.

Opposition groups have accused his administration of endemic corruption, chronic abuse of office, and vote-rigging.

Yesterday, a team of 13 British and US arms experts began investigating US accusations that Kuchma personally approved a £65m (€102m) sale of the radar system to Iraq.

The US State Department said last month that it had verified the authenticity of a July 2000 recording by one of Kuchma’s former bodyguards in which the president is allegedly heard approving the sale of a Kolchuha radar system to Baghdad.

Opposition allegations of Kuchma’s role in the killing of the reporter Heorhiy Gongadze are based on recordings by the same bodyguard, who has been granted asylum in the US.