Ukrainian prosecutors to revisit high-profile cases, including Gongadze killing – prosecutor general

‘It is for sure that we are revisiting all those cases that were closed down unlawfully, including that concerning Georgy Gongadze’s killing, and we will hold those related to this responsible,’ Yarema said at a news conference in Kyiv on July 9.

‘We know that [former chief of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry outdoor surveillance operations] Oleksiy Pukach’s initial testimony was about involvement of top government officials, and therefore I am examining all these cases now and holding relevant conferences with my deputies so as to reopen this investigation and hold the people related to committing this grave crime responsible,’ Yarema said.

Gongadze disappeared on September 16, 2000. Forensic experts said a headless corpse found in a forest near Kyiv in November that year might be Gongadze’s body and that cranium fragments found in the Kyiv region in 2009 were definitely parts of his skull.

However, the body remains unburied as Gongadze’s mother refuses to recognize it as her son’s remains.

Kuchma was charged by the Prosecutor General’s Office on March 21, 2011, of abusing power that led to Gongadze’s murder, but the Pechersky Court dropped the charges on December 13, 2011, refusing to accept former presidential bodyguard Mykola Melnychenko’s audiotapes as evidence.

Kuchma denies his complicity in Gongadze’s murder.

On January 29, 2013, the Pechersky Court found Oleksiy Pukach guilty of killing Gongadze and sentenced him to life in prison. Pukach was stripped of his rank as lieutenant-general.

Asked by the judge whether he understands the sentence, Pukach replied, “I will understand the sentence when Kuchma and Lytvyn [a former member of the presidential secretariat and later Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn] are jailed along with me.”