You're reading: Prosecution motions for life imprisonment of Pukach for murder of Gongadze

The prosecutor in the hearing of the criminal case against Oleksiy Pukach, the former head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's external surveillance department, on the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze has asked Kyiv's Pechersky District Court to sentence Pukach to life imprisonment. 

“Court debate started today. The prosecutors spoke at the debate and made their proposal regarding life imprisonment of Pukach. In addition, we suggested that he should be stripped of the rank of general by court and we think that the society will support such a verdict,” Shylov said.

He stressed that this is a legal position of the prosecution and it should not be considered as an attempt to influence the court.

Shylov also said that not all of the process participants have spoken at the debate yet. Except for the prosecution, Andriy Fedur, the lawyer of the journalist’s wife Lesia Gongadze, has also spoken at the debate. Other participants of the court process will speak at the sitting on Friday that will start at 1100.

Gongadze went missing in Kyiv on Sept.16, 2000. A decapitated corpse, which experts claimed could be that of Gongadze, was found in a forest outside Kyiv in November 2000. In May 2010, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko stated that fragments of a skull found in July 2009 in Kyiv region belonged to Gongadze.

However, the body has yet to be buried, as the journalist’s mother Lesia Gongadze refuses to recognize that it belongs to her son.

Pukach, the former head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry’s external surveillance department, who had long been on the wanted list, was detained in Zhytomyr region on July 21, 2009, and has been kept in custody since then.

In December 2010, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced that the investigation into the criminal case was over. The investigation confirmed that Pukach killed the journalist by order of then Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko.

Kyiv’s Pechersky District Court has been considering the criminal case against Pukach since April 2011.