KIEV, Nov. 30 - Mykola Melnychenko, a bodyguard who said he secretly recorded conversations of former President Leonid Kuchma and accused him of ordering the murder of a journalist, returned to Ukraine Wednesday after five years in exile.

Speaking to reporters at the Boryspil airport, Melnychenko vowed to see Kuchma and his allies punished for what he says was the former president's role in the killing in 2000 of investigative journalist Heorhiy Gongadze.