Ukrainian prosecutor probes minister's suicide

Ukrainian authorities opened a criminal probe yesterday into the death of the transport minister, found with a gunshot wound to the head a day after the opposition candidate won a controversial election re-run.

The prosecutor general's office made clear it believed Heorhiy Kyrpa, also one of Ukraine's leading businessmen, had killed himself, but suggested he might have been driven to it.

"This morning, the prosecutor-general launched a criminal investigation under the article 'driven to suicide'," a spokesman said.

Mr Kyrpa was found in the sauna of his country home outside Kiev, the Interior Ministry said. "There was one gunshot wound to the head in the region of his temple. A pistol was found next to the minister," the prosecutor's spokesman said. Kyrpa, 58, had close ties to outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and at one time was mentioned as a possible candidate in the presidential election.

He was a key member of the government of Viktor Yanukovich, who was defeated in the re-run by West-leaning opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko but has vowed to challenge the results.

The opposition said his suicide was linked to the misuse of funds to support Mr Yanukovich's election campaign.

"This is the fate of creditors to a totalitarian regime, the fate of creditors who get mixed up in dirty dealings," Mr Yushchenko's aide Petro Poroshenko told a news conference.

He said money from Ukrainian railways was funnelled to "private enterprises" and he had killed himself to "hide evidence or to make him the scapegoat... for those higher up".

The opposition earlier accused Mr Kyrpa of arranging free transport to Kiev for miners from the eastern industrial town of Donetsk to counter opposition supporters denouncing the original election. That ballot was won by Mr Yanukovich but was later annulled as fraudulent.

The government denies bringing in the miners, who staged brief protests in the capital before returning home.

Mr Kuchma, whose 10-year stay in office was marked by scandal, named Mr Kyrpa transport minister in July as part of an overhaul that created a single transport and telecommunication ministry.

He was appointed as Ukraine was preparing to sell 43 percent of its national fixed-line telecoms monopoly Ukrtelekom.

The sale was delayed amid accusations from opposition politicians that the government was staging hasty sales to win support among the business community ahead of the election.