Interfax-Ukraine Website
Kyiv, Ukraine, April 16, 2003

Kyiv. April 16. Interfax-Ukraine---President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma, after considering the open letter of the journalists regarding the case of former vice-prime minister Leonid Kozachenko, gave an instruction to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych to urgently consider the situation on the grain market of Ukraine during the government meeting.

The Head of State also instructed the prosecutor general Sviatoslav Pyskun to take under his personal control the issues raised the letter, as Olena Gromnytska, the president's press-secretary, told Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.

As it was informed, recently the 16 journalists sent an open letter to President Kuchma asking him to intervene in the "ambiguous situation" regarding opening a criminal case against former vice-prime minister Leonid Kozachenko and to "finally separate reality from political speculations."

It was noted in the document that "any analytic will prove the absurdity of GPO's accusations against L. Kozachenko." "Our constant communicating with him, numerous interviews of that period give us no reasons to consider his work economically wrong, such that is aimed at undermining economical might of Ukraine," the authors of the letter emphasized.

The criminal case against ex-vice-prime minister was opened on March 24 on the suspicion of abuse of the office on the position of vice-prime minister and of tax evasion in the amount of UAH 584,900 on the position general director of JSC "Ukragrobusiness". He is also accused of receiving a bribe of UAH 1,5 mln in shares. The Pechersk court on the request of GPO sanctioned his arrest on March 27. Kyiv Appellate Court declined to release him on the condition of limiting his freedom.