Bloggledygook: Ukraine Update: Kuchma Testifies.

Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma today answered investigator's questions in the Georgiy Gongadze murder case.

"Ex-president Leonid Kuchma was questioned as a witness in connection with the Gongadze murder case," a spokesman for Ukraine's prosecutor general said.

"After the prosecution's investigators completed their questioning, he left the building."

Two senior police officers have been arrested or detained and one has been instructed not to leave Kyiv while a fourth is wanted on an international warrant.

Gongadze's headless body was found in a ditch outside Kyiv after disappearing on September 16, 2000. The capture and conviction of his assailants was a major campaign promise of Viktor Yushchenko.

Kuchma's former bodyguard, Mykola Melnychencko, left Ukraine with approximately 35 audio CDs he says implicates Kuchma in Gongadze's murder. According to some, Kuchma is heard saying that Gongadze must be "deal[t] with." However, there are over 700 hours worth of audio and the International Press Institute (IPI) has refused to authenticate Melnychenko's recordings. Kuchma maintains that he had nothing to do with the reporter's death. Melnychenko was given asylum by the United States in April 2001.

Last week, former Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko was found dead of what authorities are calling a suicide. There are other reports that contend, however, that there were two bullets in his head.

Gongadze's widow, Miroslava Gongadze, in now questioning Kravchenko's suicide:

"(Kravchenko) is the guy who could give a lot of information and I don't think that organizers of this crime would have liked him to speak," said Miroslava Gongadze, who moved to Washington nearly four years ago.

"I was very shocked when I heard the news, I never could have predicted that something like this could happen, that he would be able or that he would commit suicide," said Gongadze, a television presenter for the US-funded Voice of America broadcasting network.

"He was a strong person. My prediction was that he would fight for himself, try to give more information about who ordered the crime," Gongadze added.

"He was the key player in this crime, he was the person in the middle of the line, the person who received the order and who gave the order. He was the middleman."

She also questions the double-bullet theory, saying, "The two bullets in his head, I can't imagine how a person can shoot himself in the head twice. It's really in the realm of possibilities that somebody might have helped him."

Yet, assistant prosecutor Victor Shokin defends the notion:

"First, he shot himself in the chin, the bullet came out near his nose. Then he shot himself in the right temple," the prosecutor said, according to online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.

Ukrainska Pravda is Georgiy Gongadze's online newspaper.

UPDATE: More here.

A very well-known and respected journalist in Ukraine emailed me earlier today, imploring, "don't believe the hype." There is so much to understand here. I will do my best to get facts and leave the speculation to others. If I mess up, call me on it.