Ukraine Minister's Death Said To Be Suicide

KIEV, Ukraine -- The death of former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko last month was almost certainly suicide, the nation's security service chief says.

"There is no other version but suicide," Oleksander Turchynov told the BBC, citing forensic and ballistics tests.

Kravchenko was found dead with two gunshot wounds to the head on March 4 in his country house outside Kiev. He was due to testify later that day about the high-profile murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze in 2000.

Turchynov said among possible reasons of Kravchenko's apparent suicide was the "burden (of the Gongadze case) he hauled for the past four years".

Kravchenko left a suicide note blaming former President Leonid Kuchma for Gongadze's death, Ukrainian investigators say.