Ukrainian ex-President Leonid Kuchma has told reporters he has been charged after being questioned by prosecutors over the 2000 murder of a journalist.

He said he had not read the charges himself. Prosecutors opened a case against him this week on suspicion of a role in Georgy Gongadze's death.

Gongadze was found beheaded months after being abducted in September 2000, when Mr Kuchma was in power.

The ex-president earlier denied any part in his death.

"I have been charged," Mr Kuchma said after emerging from a second day of questioning at the prosecutor general's office in the Ukrainian capital Kiev on Thursday....