Morley Safer:
I bring to your attention the following Kyiv Post article:
I reproduce the Kyiv post article in its entirely on the chance that it will be useful
to 60 Minutes researchers interested in developing a good story. However, for purposes
of this letter alone, we are primarily interested in information on Leonid Wolf which is
contained in the three segments in blue:
Who is Leonid Wolf and what is behind
government action?
News Analysis
By STEFAN KORSHAK
Post Staff Writer
01 July 1999
In making wealthy businessman Vadim Rabinovich persona non grata on June 24, the
Ukrainian government created a mystery. By simultaneously announcing that it had
taken a similar action against Leonid Borisovich Wolf back in December, it created
another one.
The government linked Wolf to numerous unsolved contract killings. But it did not
specify the link between Wolf and Rabinovich, other than to name them in the same
press release announcing that both Israeli citizens are banned from Ukraine.
That leaves the public, as usual, out of the loop about what the twin actions mean
and what evidence the Ukrainian government is holding. While Wolf could not be
reached for comment, Rabinovich denied the Ukrainian government's allegations in a
June 30 news conference in Tel Aviv.
The unanswered questions are numerous: What led the Ukrainian government to bar
Rabinovich from the nation for five years? What are his ties to Wolf? What evidence
links Wolf to murders?
The ban on the two men also raises larger questions about government motives: Coupled
with the pending embezzlement charges against former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko
and an aide, is the Ukrainian government finally getting tough on corruption? Or is
it simply being unfair to successful businessmen who happened to fall out of favor?
Those questions in turn raise the most unpredictable question of all: What's next?
The official State Security Service (SBU) press release appears straightforward:
"Today Ukraine's Security Service, according to materials in its possession and in
the interests of Ukraine's national security, has forbidden the entrance the citizen
of Israel Vadim Zinoviovich Rabinovich, (passport numbers) from entering Ukraine for
the period of five years beginning 24 June 1999, for causing especially serious
damage to the Ukrainian economy.
"Moreover, on 17 December 1998, the SBU closed the right of entrance into Ukrainian
territory to Israeli citizen Leonid Borisovich Wolf, who is considered a member of a
professional organized criminal group, which is suspected of carrying out contract
killings in the Odessa, Kyiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions."
The relationship between Rabinovich and Wolf was not spelled out, nor was the reason
why the Ukrainian government chose to announce the decisions in the same news
release. Who is this Leonid Wolf?
A search of Ukrainian media archives for the last 10 years turned up nothing.
Ukraine's SBU and Ministry of Internal Affairs flatly declined comment, as did
Israeli Embassy spokesmen.
However, according to Kyiv law enforcement and Odessa business sources, Wolf is a
Ukrainian native who was born in the 1940s. He emigrated to Israel in the late 1970s