Incident At Frankfurt Airport
Early May 2009 Lutsenko became entangled in a scandal concerning his behaviour during a visit to Germany. According to German newspaper Bild Lutsenko was detained at Frankfurt Airport by the German police in a state of acute alcohol intoxication. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry dismissed these allegations, according to the information of the Ministry, on 4 May 2009 the Interior Ministry's delegation was detained at the Frankfurt airport during document checks and missed the flight, with the plane crew refused to take them on board. The delegation decided to catch the next flight. "There were no handcuffs, no drunken conflict" the department said. On 12 May 2009 Yuri Lutsenko sent in his resignation from the post of Interior Minister. In his letter of resignation the Minister described the incident that happened in Frankfurt, and stressed that the German police had officially apologized to the Ukrainian delegation for this incident but that despite this German mass media disseminated false publications, which were later re-published by Ukrainian media but that none of these publications mentioned the apologizes of the German police. Lutsenko was confident that a dirty campaign was waged against him in Ukraine. The aim of the campaign, according to him, is to destabilize the work of the Interior Ministry.
The Ukrainian Parliament has to agree with the resignation of a Minister before the Minister can leave her/his post. On 15 May 2009 it passed a resolution, stipulating to address the government with a request to suspend Yuri Lutsenko from post of the Interior Minister of Ukraine until the “drunken incident” is investigated.
From 12 May 2009 till 14 May 2009 and again on 15 May 2009 faction members of the oppositional Party of Regions blocked the Ukrainian parliament’s rostrum and presidium demanding the resignation of Lutsenko they placed (in the session hall) posters with inscriptions: “A Drunkard Minister is a shame for Ukraine”, “Drunk policeman is a criminal” and “Drunk Minister –a politician?”.
Later that 12 May 2009 Lutsenko claimed he will sue Bild. According to Lutsenko, the publication does not contain “any true things, any references to documents or real officials”.
President Viktor Yushchenko considered his appeal for resignation “a logical step, which should be made ... There was an incident which damaged the reputation of the state, the government and the minister himself. It must be settled with due regard for the interests of the nation and the country”. Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko believes that the information about the incident is doubtful. "I may state that the son of the Interior Minister is a child ill with cancer; he underwent a very serious operation. This child is taking special medicines that are incompatible with alcohol drinking. Besides, no tests were made. I’m confident that this child had nothing in common at all with alcohol. And this untruth, which was publicized many times, casts doubt upon the whole information”. The Party of Regions faction insists on accepting the resignation of Lutsenko without getting any proofs of the incident at Frankfurt airport. The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc faction will not support the resignation of the Interior Minister without any proofs of the incident. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has asked Germany for official information about the incident, but got no response.
On 15 May 2009 the Ukrainian parliament passed a resolution asking the government to hold a-seven-day official investigation into the events at Frankfurt Airport (first deputy minister Mykhailo Kliuyev served as acting Minister that period). After that Lutsenko resumed at his post.
On 10 June 2011 Bild retracted the report about the events at Frankfurt Airport after being ordered so by the Landgericht Berlin.
Read more about this topic: Yuriy Lutsenko, Political Biography
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