Kyiv, Sept. 1 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Myroslava Gongadze, the widow of murdered journalist Georgy Gongadze, has insisted that the trial of former Head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's Foreign Surveillance Department Oleksiy Pukach be open to the public and is planning to seek this at the European Court of Human Rights.
"The public should know this, and the constitution envisages the rights of victims and the openness of the trial, and, in principle, I will appeal to the European Court [of Human Rights] with the demand that the trial be open, and I will file a petition that a Ukrainian court violated my rights as a victim in this process," she said in an interview with Radio Liberty.
While commenting on Pukach’s questioning in court, Gongadze said that his testimony should be checked.
"Both [former Ukrainian President Leonid] Kuchma, [incumbent Parliament Speaker Volodymyr] Lytvyn and [former First Deputy Interior Minister Mykola] Dzhyha are still at large, they are still alive, and they have to testify in this trial! General Pukach is not currently repenting, but trying to convince the court that he had acted lawfully, killing Georgy. Pukach should definitely be imprisoned for life. But a matter of principle in this process is not so much the proof of Pukach’s guilt, but the identification and prosecution of those who directly ordered Georgy’s murder," she said.
As reported, the lawyer for the journalist’s widow Myroslava Gongadze, Valentyna Telychenko, said that Pukach named in court on Tuesday those who ordered the murder of Gongadze and that these were the same names he announced during the pre-trial investigation, in particular, second Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, former Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko, former Head of the Presidential Administration Volodymyr Lytvyn, and former First Deputy Interior Minister Mykola Dzhyha. The court session was closed
