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Security chief downplays TVi attack ties
Journal Staff Report

KIEV, May 7 – A top security official under President Viktor Yanukovych on Tuesday downplayed his alleged involvement in a raider attack on a leading investigative television channel, adding that the dispute must be decided in court.

Andriy Kliuyev, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Committee, made the comments a day after a former owner of the TVi channel had alleged he was aware of the planned attack.

“I don’t have sufficient informat6ion on this to make definitive conclusions about the situation at TVi,” Kliuyev said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

“I am sure the conflict must be decided through legal ways,” Kliuyev said. “If there were any violations of law at the channel, they must be eliminated.”

The developments come amid speculation that TVi has been taken over at the request of a powerful group within the Yanukovych camp in order to silence the channel’s criticism.

Most of TVi’s reporters and staff – 34 people – resigned after the change of ownership and management, citing emerged censorship pressure.

Konstantin Kagalovsky, an owner of the TVi who claimed the channel has been illegally taken over by other people, recently alleged that Kliuyev was aware of the attack.

“I think he was ware, of course,” Kagalovsky said in an interview with Telekrytyka online magazine focusing on television in Ukraine.

Kagalovsky has been reportedly seeking to sell the unprofitable channel for $120 million and approached several businessmen that had declined the offer, people familiar with the situation said.

Kagalovsky said he met Kliuyev as the attack was in progress to seek support. Kliuyev asked Kagalovsky to join him in a car ride on the way to Boryspil airport to discuss the problem, and apparently promised to send law enforcement to channel to fend off the attack, but had never done so. Kliuyev was on the way to Brussels for meetings with European officials.

"He assured me that the law and justice will be restored and that the attackers will be kicked out,” Kagalovsky said. “He promised to give appropriate orders before he gets on a plane.”

But now Kagalovsky believes it was a trick used by Kliuyev to mislead European leaders in Brussels that the authorities have been trying to rescue the independent television channel.

“Imagine their reaction [in Europe] once they realize that they have been deliberately misled," Kagalovsky said. (tl/ez)




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