SUSPECTED MASS MURDERER PROMOTED TO SBU DEPUTY CHIEF

General Guennadi Moskal has had only an eight month stint as President Yushchenko’s eye in the Crimea. On January 9 Mr. Yushchenko relieved him of his duties as his representative in the Russian-speaking peninsula and appointed Moskal as a second in command at the Ukrainian secret police (SBU). General Moskal had started his career as a police officer. He served all political regimes in the Ukraine: from communists to Kuchma and to orange tin pot dictator Victor Yushchenko. From 1997 to 2000 he was a chief policeman in the Crimea and got known for his ruthlessness and intrigue. His Crimean colleagues say that Mr. Moskal played off one criminal group against the other and manipulated political clans taking shady business schemes under his control. After former president Leonid Kuchma dismissed him from the Crimean police Moskal has had several appointments in regional administrations. As a local SBU chief in Dnepropetrovsk Moskal was entrusted to prepare Kuchma’s visit to the city that counted many homeless people. General Moskal swiftly got rid of the city’s shameful eyesores. Witnesses say that he rounded the beggars up put them on a barge and let it sail along the Dnepr river. When the barge came to its destination in a desert place 36 out of 150 passengers were missing. There is no precise information of what happened to those who disappeared. Some evidence suggests that they were thrown overboard. The survivors were let go in the wild. Their fate is unknown. Charges against Mr. Moakal were laid. Later, they were unexpectedly dropped.