interior minister links suspect to yanukovych.

ukraine’s interior minister yuriy lutsenko on nov. 12 accused a dean of a state academy of being involved in pedophilia, according to news agency reports.

lutsenko, who is a political ally of prime minister yulia tymoshenko, said vasyl mykhailov – an associate of ex-prime minister victor yanukovych in the 2004 presidential election campaign – was detained on nov. 5.

kyiv’s shevchenkivskiy district court on nov. 12 ordered mykhailov, dean of ukraine’s state maritime academy, to be kept in pre-trial confinement for two months. the suspect could not be reached for comment. mykhailov’s receptionist at the academy told the kyiv post that her boss had not been to work for two weeks.

lutsenko said police investigators arrested mykhailov on suspicion of rape and child molestation. his alleged accomplices, according to the minister, were his female roommate, driver and two natives of the republic of guinea-bissau. the investigation was opened last fall, lutsenko said.

“we have collected all the necessary evidence proving the criminal activities of [vasyl] mykhailov,” lutsenko told journalists.

according to lutsenko, mykhailov’s roommate recruited children aged 12-16 and forced them to take part in lewd acts. he said that ukraine’s police are currently investigating more than 270 cases of alleged pedophilia.

serhiy taran, director of the international democracy institute, a kyiv-based think tank, told the kyiv post that lutsenko’s extended comments about the mykhailov case indicate that the country’s politicians are using allegations of sex crimes to serve their own political ends.

“they will soon try to use the weather as a political tool,” taran said.

child sex abuse became a hot topic in ukraine during mid-october, after a scandal erupted over allegations that three parliament deputies belonging to prime minister’s yulia tymoshenko’s faction abused at least two children.

nothing has been heard about the case since the general prosecutor’s office took over the investigation in late october.