KIEV, May 23 – Parliament on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to create a commission to investigate a recent attack on reporters and the role that may have been played by top law enforcement officials in the process.

The vote comes after Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko denied earlier media reports that he may have secretly watched the attack from a rooftop terrace nearby.

Opposition groups suspect that the attack and street clashes were part of a plan by the authorities to destabilize Ukraine's political situation ahead of the next presidential election.

“Our task within the commission is to figure out the role and the place played personally by Interior Minister Zakharchenko,” Arseniy Yatseniuk, the leader of the opposition Batkivshchyna group, said.

Zakharchenko was summoned up to Parliament on Tuesday to report on the street clashes that have taken place on Saturday during a major opposition protest rally.

Zakharchenko said police are investigating the clashes, including the attack on two reporters, when police officers had refused to protect them from a mob. He also accused opposition groups for failing to keep order during the protest march.

But opposition groups and journalists were outraged after Zakharchenko had misled lawmakers by providing untrue information during his report.

“Why did he blatantly lie to lawmakers while speaking from a podium,” Yatseniuk said, adding that Zakharchenko and “his men have directly instructed the mob and have been directly related to the provocation.”

A news portal hvylya.org on Wednesday published a phone, which was taken on Saturday, showing three men have been standing on the rooftop terrace of Intercontinental hotel observing the opposition protest and street clashes. One of the men had strikingly resembled Zakharchenko.

The picture fueled suspicions among opposition lawmakers that the attack on reporters may have been a provocation developed by the law enforcement agencies.

But Zakharchenko, who joined Prime Minister Mykola Azarov on Thursday for a meeting with journalists, denied the report.

“Zaharchenko laughed and said that he could not be there because he does not walk on roofs,” Olha Snisarchuk, a reporter with Channel 5 who was attacked by the mob on Saturday, said. Snisarchuk, along with other reporters, attended the meeting with Azarov.

Yatseniuk said the commission will also target Andriy Kliuyev, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, a top security body under President Viktor Yanukovych.

Yatseniuk, citing unidentified sources at the police, said Kliuyev supervised the secret operation trying to discredit the opposition protest rally. The operation was developed by a team of officials set up within the interior ministry, Yatseniuk said.

“Facts point to Kliuyev personally dealing with preparing the provocations, beating of journalists and street clashes,” Yatseniuk said. (tl/ez)