Ukraine secret police question top opposition politician

Sep 8, 2010, 15:15 GMT

Kiev - Agents from Ukraine's secret police, the SBU, on Wednesday interrogated a top opposition politician, raising new charges of political persecution in the former Soviet republic.

Oleksandr Turchinov, the number two man in Ukraine's leading opposition political party BYuT (Party of Yulia Tymoshenko), was questioned at SBU headquarters in Kiev as part of an ongoing investigation into a government gas deal worth 2.75 billion dollars, SBU spokeswoman Marina Ostapenko said.

In a separate incident, an official for the Ukrainian branch of the International Renaissance Foundation (IRF), a pro-democracy NGO funded by the US businessman George Soros, on Wednesday accused SBU officers of seeking out and possibly trying to intimidate independent election monitors.

The SBU is Ukraine's follow-on intelligence agency to the Soviet-era KGB. Visits and interrogations by SBU agents, in modern Ukraine, are still widely feared.

Turchinov served as SBU head in in 2005. He was Ukraine Vice Premier from December 2007 - March 2010, acting as then Prime Minister Tymoshenko's top advisor on intelligence, security, and energy matters.

Tymoshenko, in opposition since April 2010, and has repeatedly accused Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych of ordering the police and the secret service to settle scores with her and her allies.

SBU agents backed by uniformed police attempted to serve a search warrant at his home on Thursday evening, as an intimidation tactic, Turchinov said.

'They were trying to pressure me by frightening my family,' Turchinov said, according to an Interfax news agency report.

SBU spokeswoman Ostapenko denied Turchinov's allegations, saying SBU investigators had for months received no response from Turchinov to letters requesting he speak with SBU officers, and so had been obliged to contact him at home after working hours.

She likewise played down news reports SBU agents in recent weeks had targeted pro-democracy NGOs operating in Ukraine, saying there had been 'some visits and discussions (with NGO workers)...but only with the goal of ensuring transparent elections.'

Yevhen Bystrytsky, head of the Renaissance Foundation Ukrainian branch, in a Wednesday statement said the SBU agents had in recent weeks questioned workers for pro-democracy NGOs operating in the Kiev region.

Secret police visits had intensified in recent weeks, and ran contrary to 'the development of an open, uncorrupted and democratic society in Ukraine,' Bystrytsky said.

Serhy Levochkin, President Yanukovych's chief of staff, denied the Yanukovych administration had ordered the SBU to settle scores with the opposition, or to influence the upcoming October 31 vote.

'We are absolutely committed to free and fair elections,' he said, speaking at a meeting with foreign reporters in Kiev. 'We support only the law...and have no connection or interest in SBU investigations...as long as the rights of citizens, including Turchinov's, are protected.'

The SBU, currently headed by a close Yanukovvych ally, opened a criminal investigation into a 2.75 billion dollar energy deal signed between Kiev and the Kremlin in energy, with Turchinov acting at the time as one of Ukraine's top negotiators.

'The great misfortune is that instead of prosecuting high officials who were giving away government resources to (foreign companies)...they (the SBU and the Yanukovych administration) are persecuting government officials, who defended Ukraine's interests,' Turchinov said.