The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office has filed an appeal contesting the decision made by Kyiv's Pechersky District Court, which reversed the decision to open a criminal case against ex-president Leonid Kuchma, who was charged in the killing of journalist Georgy Gongadze, Prosecutor General's Office spokesman Yuriy Boichenko told Interfax-Ukraine on Monday.
Proceedings against Kuchma, who was charged with abuse of authority, were launched on March 21, 2011.
Audiotapes that former presidential bodyguard Mykola Melnychenko allegedly recorded in Kuchma’s office were accepted as evidence.
Kuchma had travel restrictions put on him and was brought together with Melnychenko and Oleksiy Pukach, a former head of the Interior Ministry’s outdoor surveillance department, in joint interrogations.
Gongadze went missing in Kyiv on Sept. 16, 2000. A decapitated corpse was found in a forest outside of Kyiv in November 2000, and experts concluded later that it could have been Gongadze’s.
Remains of a skull were found in the Kyiv region in 2009, and the Prosecutor General’s Office later declared it was the journalist’s.
Kyiv’s Pechersky District Court canceled a Prosecutor General’s Office ruling on prosecuting Kuchma on Dec. 13.
