Alexander Popovich, foreground, Nikolay Protasov, center, and Valery Kostenko, background, the three former police officers accused of murdering investigative journalist Georgy Gongadze nearly eight years ago, sit in the defendant cage during a court hearing in Kiev, on Saturday, March 15, 2008.
Photo: AP, AP
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Kiev Court Convicts Killers, Not Orderers
The Kiev Court of Appeal delivered past Saturday a verdict under the most notorious trial witnessed by Ukraine in the recent few years – the Gongadze case. Three killers of Ukrainskaya Pravda Internet-edition founder will serve 12 or 13 years in prison. Another accused is yet on the wanted list. But the persons, who had actually ordered the crime, are still unknown for the record. They are close to ex-president Leonid Kuchma, quite a number of analysts speculate.
In the Kiev Court of Appeal, the verdict was read for five hours starting from 11:10 a.m., March 15, 2008. The prisoners at the bar, once Interior Ministry’s officers Nikolay Protasov, Valery Kostenko and Alexander Popovich were deemed guilty and condemned to imprisonment of 13, 12 and 12 years respectively. The court had taken into consideration the magnitude of offence as well as the poor health of Protasov and the cooperation of Kostenko and Popovich with detectives.
Georgy Gongadze had been probing into corrupt practices of top-ranked bureaucrats in Ukraine and his assassination triggered a great political response. The audio tapes proving direct involvement of then Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma along with some of the country’s political elite emerged soon after the crime. Kuchma’s guard Nikolay Melnichenko made them in the president’s office.
Melnichenko’s records were used as evidence during the current trial, not against Kuchma though. According to the court, the condemned officers had killed journalist under the order of their chief, Alexei Pukach, who headed the Outdoor Surveillance and Criminal Intelligence Department at Ukrainian Interior Ministry. Pukach is on the international wanted list now.
Under the verdict, the Kiev police officers kidnapped Georgy Gongadze September 16, 2000. They drove him to the wood near Sukholesie-village, the Kiev region. There, they pushed the journalist out of the car, undressed him and threw close to the pit, face down. Pukach was strangling the victim, first by hands and then by the belt, while Popovich was beating him. Once Gongadze was dead, Protasov and Kostenko threw his body to the pit, poured gasoline and burnt it. Then they buried the pit and drove back to Kiev in their Hyundai.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 17, 2008
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