Ukraine's Kuchma sacks minister

Kuchma ignores calls for his resignation

KIEV, Ukraine -- President Leonid Kuchma has dismissed Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko following demands from the opposition.

Activists who have been staging anti-Kuchma protests for three months had demanded Kravchenko's dismissal over allegations that both he and the president were involved in the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

A spokesperson for the president's office said: "The president has today sacked Yuriy Kravchenko from his post as interior minister. On March 26 he also signed a decree to appoint Yuri Smirnov as the new interior minister."

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in recent months after the publication of tapes in which voices similar to those of Kuchma and Kravchenko discuss kidnapping campaigning journalist Georgiy Gongadze, whose headless corpse was found in November.

Gongadze's murder and the publication of the tapes plunged Ukraine into its biggest political scandal in a decade.

Last month Kuchma dismissed the head of Ukraine's security service whom opposition groups also accuses of involvement.

But the step was seen as an expression of the president's anger over the apparent breach of security in the so-called "tape affair" rather than a move to appease opposition.

Opposition groups have also demanded the sacking of chief prosecutor Mykhailo Potebenko, whom they charge with slow and insufficient investigation of the Gongadze case.

Only the resignations of Kravchenko and Potebenko, opposition leaders have previously said could open the way for dialogue with the authorities and help resolve the deepening crisis in the country.

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Ukraine
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