Kuchma's former bodyguard Melnychenko detained in Kyiv - public organization
KYIV. May 13 (Interfax) -Mykola Melnychenko, ex-major of the Ukrainian State Protection Service, who allegedly recorded numerous conversations in former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma's office before fleeing abroad, and now back in Ukraine, was detained on Monday near the administrative court building in Kyiv, the press service of the Nastup (Onset) public organization has reported.
Melnychenko was grabbed and knocked down by riot policemen the moment he emerged from the building, it said.
Activists had gathered in front of the building earlier on Monday to demand an explanation why Valeriy Popovich, ex-mayor of the town of Vasilkov near Kyiv, had been denied registration as a mayoral candidate.
Melnychenko is Popovych's representative and legal advisor. On May 11, Melnychenko locked the territorial election commission chief in his office in Vasilkov.
The press service also said that policemen had blocked the entrance to the Kyiv Administrative Court and do not clear reporters to the tenth floor. Clashes break up from time to time beteen activists and policemen. "An injured activist has just been carried out of the building," the press service said.
The city police, meanwhile, have denied reports about Melnychenko's detention.
"This information is untrue. No one detained Melnychenko," a police spokesman told Interfax.
Reports said earlier that opposition groups blamed the authorities for registering their protege Olha Zmayeva of the UDAR Party as a mayoral candidate in Vasilkov and they insisted that the sole agreed opposition candidate in the mayoral election was Serhiy Sabov. They also complained that despite reshuffling in the UDAR party's local branch, its re-registration was delayed deliberately to perpetuate the UDAR Party's clone in Vasilkov.
Ukraine's governing Party of Regions party assailed the claims it had played a role in denying registration to Sabov and said that two applications for the post of mayor - from Sabov and Zmayeva - had been accepted simultaneously.
The mayoral elections in Vasilkov are scheduled for June 2 2013. Vitaliy Klitschko's UDAR Party, the Batkivshchina party and the Svovoda (Freedom) party have backed Sabov as the single opposition candidate.