Ukrainian ex-president Leonid Kuchma on Wednesday denied involvement in the 2000 murder of opposition journalist Georgiy Gongadze and said he was ready to go through "all the torments of hell" to prove his innocence.
Speaking to journalists before he appeared for questioning at the general prosecutor's office over the Gongadze killing, he said: "I honestly feel calm because I don't feel my guilt."
"You know I lived 10 years under psychological pressure. So today I am morally ready to go through all the torments of hell to show that I am innocent," the 72-year-old Kuchma said.
"I want to wash away the shameful stain," he added.
The opening of the case on Tuesday against Kuchma, once a patron of President Viktor Yanukovich, surprised many observers.
Critics of Yanukovich and the political opposition have consistently accused him of covering up misdeeds of his political and business allies since coming to power in February 2010, while at the same time persecuting opposition rivals.
Kuchma, a former Soviet missile factory director who served two terms as president of independent Ukraine from 1994 to 2005, appeared for questioning after the general prosecutor's office opened a criminal case against him on suspicion of involvement in Gongadze's killing.
The grisly murder of the 31-year-old campaigning editor, a fierce public critic of Kuchma, became post-Soviet Ukraine's most notorious crime case.
It led to street clashes between protesters and riot police and marked a turning point in Kuchma's 10-year rule.
Former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yanukovich's fiercest rival, has said that she sees the whole affair as "bluff and window-dressing" aimed at projecting the impression that the Yanukovich leadership was abiding by the rule of law.
She said Kuchma's prosecution will come to nothing.
One analyst suggested that the final outcome may be that Kuchma's name will be officially cleared. "In the end it may turn out that things will suit Kuchma fine. He risks very little -- there is no real direct proof against him," said Volodymyr Fesenko of the Penta think tank.
Gongadze, whose Internet newspaper Ukrainska Pravda was sharply critical of Kuchma's term in office, disappeared in September 2000 in the capital Kiev. His headless body was found one and a half months later in woodland outside the city.
Last September, on the 10th anniversary of Gongadze's death, the state prosecutor named Yuri Kravchenko, who was interior minister at the time, as the person who had instigated and ordered Gongadze's killing.
In 2005, Kravchenko was found dead at home from gunshot wounds which were officially said to be self-inflicted.
Two interior ministry officers are already in jail for their part in the killing, while a third person, former police general Oleksiy Pukach, is awaiting trial.
But Gongadze's family and the political opposition have always said other powerful figures were behind his killing.
The next stage of the legal process should be an investigation by law enforcement officers who should decide whether there are grounds to charge Kuchma with a crime or not.
