KIEV, April 17 – Ukrainian prosecutors need “several more days” to complete investigation into the alleged involvement of former President Leonid Kuchma in the murder of journalist Heorhiy Gongadze in September 2000, Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka said Sunday.

“The prosecutors are finishing the investigation of this case,” Pshonka said in an interview with Inter television. “Several more days are needed to complete the investigation, and to finally submit charges against Kuchma.”

The comment shows the investigation, which was first announced on March 22, has been making progress at an unusually high pace.

The prosecutors are using recordings secretly made by Mykola Melnychenko, a former Kuchma’s bodyguard, as evidence in the case. Kuchma is apparently heard at the recordings of ordering to settle accounts with Gongadze.

The investigation also relies on evidence submitted by Oleksiy Pukach, a former head of surveillance department at the Internal Affairs Ministry and the alleged killer of Gongadze.

Pukach, who was arrested in July 2009 after six-year man hunt, is seen by investigators as the only person who can lead investigation to those who had actually ordered the murder, which had shaken Ukraine’s political landscape since September 2000.

Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, a former chief of staff at the Kuchma administration, is appanreltly also mentioned by Pukach in his evidence.

Kuchma and Lytvyn flatly denied their involvement.

Kuchma on Thursday alleged that Melnychenko has been cooperating with Russian special services, reversing his earlier comments over the past 10 year that Western intelligence agencies may have been involved.

The murder, and the subsequent release of the recordings at which apparently Kuchma is heard ordering to settle accounts with Gongadze, sparked a huge scandal and massive protests in Ukraine.

The developments froze relations between Ukraine and the West, de-facto pushing Kiev politically towards closer ties with Moscow.

Vladimir Putin, then the Russian president, was one of few international leaders that had met Kuchma repeatedly after the scandal. At one point they signed an agreement - in July 2001 - to create a joint venture that would operate Ukraine’s natural gas pipelines that move Russian gas to Europe, but the JV had later stumbled and had never materialized. (tl/ez)