KIEV, Feb 19: Ukrainian prosecutors on Thursday turned down a request for an independent oversight of a government analysis of an audiotape that alleged President Leonid Kuchma had a role in the murder of a dissident journalist in 2000.

The British National Union of Journalists, International Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and other press organizations had asked the prosecutors to make the analysis public.

The tape, smuggled out of the country by one of Kuchma's bodyguards, Mykola Melnychenko, allegedly has the president ordering the killing of outspoken reporter Georgy Gongadze, who was investigating government corruption.

Gongadze, who had been frequently critical of Kuchma in articles in his Internet newspaper, disappeared in September 2000 and his headless body was found in woods outside Kiev two months later.

The murder triggered an unprecedented political scandal in the former Soviet state, including mass street protests over Kuchma's alleged involvement in the case. Kuchma has consistently denied any role in the murder and three years ago Ukrainian prosecutors dismissed the tape as a "vulgar montage".

The Gongadze case, which is still under investigation, is often cited by international observers as an example of government persecution of opposition journalists and lack of media freedom in Ukraine. -AFP