**************************************************************
Culled from the BBC.
Oh well, i guess the saying that "we are the company we keep"
rings true in this case.
Jammeh's buddy is a murderer too, no wonder they are so
close.
One wonders what they talk about when they chat or when Jammeh
visited him.
Atleast his parliamentarrians have got enought balls to launch
a formal inquiry.
Regards
Manneh
***************************************************************
Ukraine president faces murder probe
Kuchma: Faces criminal proceedings over claims
The Ukrainian parliament has backed a call to launch a formal legal inquiry
into President Leonid Kuchma for allegedly helping a former prime minister to
organise the assassination of two MPs.
The motion to start the inquiry - the first stage of formal criminal
proceedings - was proposed by the Anti-Mafia faction within parliament.
It called for Mr Kuchma to be investigated by the General Prosecutor's office
over his alleged role in aiding and abetting the former Prime Minister, Pavlo
Lazarenko, who is accused of murdering two members of parliament, Yevhen
Shcherban and Vadym Hetman.
Mr Shcherban, who had major business interests, was shot dead at Donetsk
airport in 1996.
Ex-Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko is also accused
Officials believe his murder may have been linked to a turf war with rival
businessmen, who were allies of Mr Lazarenko.
However, other reports have suggested that Mr Shcherban had himself previously
been linked to an assassination attempt against Mr Lazarenko.
Two years after the first shooting, the second deputy, Mr Hetman, was murdered
in Kiev in April 1998.
He was head of a major currency exchange, and officials have also linked his
death to a business dispute involving Mr Lazarenko.
Public allegations
The three anti-mafia deputies who proposed the parliamentary motion demanded a
full, objective investigation into the whole affair.
They want the investigation's findings to be sent to parliament for a decision
on whether the president should be impeached.
More than 340 MPs were in parliament as the vote was taken, and 160 voted to
support the move, reported the Ukrainian news agency, Unian.
Ukraine is preparing for parliamentary elections on 31 March.
The murder accusations against Mr Lazarenko were formally made public at the
start of February.
A deputy prosecutor general told a news conference that an official allegation
had been levelled against him for organising the two killings.
Conspiracy claim
Nearly $3m was allegedly transferred from Mr Lazarenko's private bank accounts
to fund the murders, the news conference heard.
Allegations were also made of a wider murder conspiracy.
Officials say that files lodged at a court in Kiev name a total of eight people
who are accused of 25 murders and 17 attempted murders.
Mr Lazarenko is currently in the US, where he is facing money-laundering and
corruption charges in San Francisco.
Ukraine has asked for him to be extradited, but the lack of an appropriate
treaty is thought to make this unlikely.
Mr Kuchma has previously faced claims of involvement in other murders,
including the death of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, whose headless body was
found in a forest after he vanished.
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