Nearly four years after the murder of opposition journalist Gyorgi Gongadze, the mysterious affair continues to haunt the Ukrainian regime with the approach of presidential elections in October.
Among the many surprising twists and turns, the latest is a statement by the prosecutor's office this week that a man locked up for several beheading murders has confessed to killing the journalist.
The headless body of the 31-year-old journalist was found two months after he disappeared.
International civic rights organisations have asked why the prosecutor's office, having dragged its heels in the case for years, cannot supply more details about the suspect, who has been identified only as "Mr K".
Whether the prosecutor thinks Mr K operated alone or with others is another unanswered question.
The prosecutor also announced the opening of an official inquiry into the death in jail of former police officer Ihor Honcharov, considered to be an important witness in the Gongadze case, Honcharov was found dead of as a result of blows to the back, and a spokesman said the inquiry would seek to establish how these blows were inflicted.
This announcement followed the publication of a story in a London newspaper accusing high government officials of trying to block the investigation, and affirming that Honcharov succumbed to an overdose of barbiturates.
Honcharov, who left the police after a 30-year career and then became involved with the criminal underworld, was tortured in prison and his body was incinerated three days after his death in August last year, according to his lawyer.
In a posthumous letter handed to a Ukrainian non-government organisation, Honcharov accused a former interior minister as well as President Leonid Kuchma of being directly involved in the journalist's death.
It was not the first time that Kuchma, who denies any connection with the murder, has been accused.
Sound recordings in his bureau recorded by a member of his official guard who is now a refugee in the United States, purported to show the president was mixed up in the affair.
With the approach of the presidential election October 31, the opposition is using the new revelations to discredit the president, while those loyal to him want to finish with the affair once and for all.
Kuchma, who has led Ukraine since 1994, has said we wants to quit power this year.
His popularity is at its lowest ebb because of the scandal, and the online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, which Gongadze directed, says the killing is likely to disturb the president's retirement.
Volodymyr Tsvil, a former member of the Socialist opposition who was responsible for leaking the recordings, said from his home in Munich that senior officials, including Defence Minister Evhen Marchuk, knew that Kuchma was being spied upon.
That report was in the weekly Stolichne Novosti. According to the prosecutor's office, a new "international" inquiry is being conducted to discover whether the audio-tapes are genuine. On them, a voice resembling that of Kuchma is heard asking about the project to kidnap Gongadze.
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