a scandalous tape linking president leonid kuchma to the disappearance of an opposition journalist is an actual recording of a series of conversations and not a computer-generated fabrication, experts have said.

researchers from tno, the dutch institute of applied scientific research that evaluated the controversial recordings, said the tapes are real, but they could not say for certain whether the voices were those of kuchma and two of his top officials.

the tape was released to the public nov. 28 by socialist party leader oleksandr moroz, who said the tape was given to him by an sbu officer who had access to the president's office.

on the tape, three men are recorded discussing the kidnapping of georgy gongadze, a controversial journalist who disappeared sept. 16. moroz claims the two other speakers on the tape are head of the presidential administration volodymyr lytvyn and interior minister yury kravchenko.

tno researchers said they were unable to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that it was kuchma speaking on the tapes, according to corine de vries of volkskrant, the dutch tabloid that ordered the analysis in early november.

"they tried everything," said de vries, adding that researchers' attempts to manipulate tape contents to improve audibility failed.

computer-aided voice transcription remains a specialty of western intelligence agencies, including the u.s. national security agency, which employ thousands of highly trained voice language analysts to decipher, transcribe or interpret what computers still cannot catch.

de vries said tno researchers advised her to do such "subjective research" to determine whether one of the voices on the tape belonged to kuchma. that would entail hiring a team of voice analysts to compare and analyze human transcriptions of the 10,000 words uttered in the 11 conversations recorded on the tape.

"the agreement was they would make an official report of the results of the test, but the tape simply wasn't accepted because of its quality," said de vries, whose newspaper broke the story about the scandal after moroz agreed to make the tapes public in budapest on nov. 24.

de vries said she decided not publish her story unless her source was ready to go public. "that is when mr. moroz decided to take the risk," she said.

moroz told journalists and officials in budapest on nov. 25 that he had received the tapes in mid-october from an sbu agent charged with ensuring that offices within presidential administration offices were bug proof.

petro symonenko, the leader of the communist party, reported dec. 6 that on nov. 11 an informant offered him a tape containing an order to kidnap gongadze on the condition that he make it public. symonenko refused because, "the communist party has had to deal with fraud and insinuations too often," he told interfax.

symonenko said that he would have accepted the tape if he was sure it was authentic. but the informant who contacted him said that "technical expertise was still under way."

symonenko said he wasn't sure whether these people were from sbu. "they were just people who wanted to meet with me," he said.

how the tapes wound up in holland remain unclear, with neither moroz nor devries willing to elaborate.

with no means to conduct subjective research, devries turned to the internet. "i also thought that a good way to do subjective research was simply to put the tape on the internet, so that everybody could decide for themselves if they think it's kuchma or not," devries said.

of the approximately 170,000 people who listened to tapes on volkskrant's web site, about 30,000 of those did so from ukraine, where tens of thousands more read transcripts of the tapes that were posted on several web sites, including ukrainska pravda, the web site that gongadze founded.

many people familiar with the president's manner of speech told the post that at least one of the voices on the tape belonged to ukraine's president.

in a 10-page article titled, "too much for words," grani web site correspondent tetyana korobova analyzed the contents of each taped segment, which were recorded over a two-and-a-half to three-month period. korobova, who was mentioned on the tape in disparaging terms, is convinced that it was kuchma on the tape.

"even the pygmies of kyiv's political elite know the tapes are real," korobova, concluded, blasting ukraine's political pundits who have blamed moroz instead of conducting an independent investigation to determine whose voices are on the tape.

but vladimir malinkovich, the former radio liberty correspondent and political analyst who worked with kuchma during his first presidential bid in 1994, said he was not completely sure the voice is kuchma's.

"the vocabulary used on the tape is similar to the vocabulary of the president, but certain words and phrases sounded odd," said malinkovich, who speculated that western secret services were behind the affair.

meanwhile, ukraine's prosecutor general mykola potebenko demanded on dec. 5 that moroz turn over originals of the tapes for expert analysis. potebenko claimed that only the original recording could be used for analysis and without it, there would be no sense in going through with the analysis, gazetasngru reported potebenko as saying.

but in the same report, rada deputy viktor shyshkin, who was ukraine's prosecutor general from 1991-93, said that an analysis could be conducted using just a copy of the original.

the ukrainian government had not requested assistance from the united states or other nations in the case. and until they do, they likely won't get it, at least from the united states. the mutual legal assistance treaty signed by ukraine and ratified by the u.s. senate on oct. 20 spells out that only the prosecutor general's office or the ministry of justice are authorized to request u.s. assistance in such cases.

but europe is a different story. while the government hasn't requested help, a parliamentary committee has.

yury karmazin, head of the committee against organized crime and corruption, told interfax on dec. 6 that he personally delivered the cassette to a representative of the council of europe for an independent analysis last nov. 30. he also said the tape is being studied by ukrainian experts and preliminary results are expected within a week