Nikolay Melnichenko

FILE Former officer of the State Security Guard of Ukraine, Major Nikolay Melnichenko during press-conference in Uzhgorod, on Wednesday, December 2, 2009. The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine following an address of lawyers of second Ukrainian President (1994-2005) Leonid Kuchma has ordered checks into claims that an illegal recording was made of a face-to-face meeting that took place between the ex-president and a former officer of the State Security Guard of Ukraine. "During the face-to-face meeting we had suspicions that Melnichenko was making secret recordings using a special device installed in his watch. Due to this, we made a verbal request to the investigator to open a criminal case under Article 94 of the Criminal and Procedural Code against this person on the basis of the fact that he could have made a secret recording without the permission of the investigator," one of Kuchma's lawyers said on Tuesday. Photo by Yanosh Nemesh / UNIAN