A judge of the Pechersky district court, Larysa Tsokol, has resigned, according to Valentyna Telychko, the lawyer of widow of the journalist Myroslava Gongadze, at the closing of cases against former President Leonid Kuchma, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn, former Head of the Security Service Leonid Derkach, deceased General of the Interior Ministry Eduard Fere and former major of the presidential security service Mykola Melnychenko on October 7.
Telychko told reporters about the judge’s decision to resign after the talk with judge Tsokol.
According to the lawyer, the judge explained her resignation by the fact that in 2004 the Pechersky district court under her chairmanship canceled a resolution by the Prosecutor’s General Office to open a criminal case against Oleksiy Pukach, the former head of the external surveillance department.
Telychko noted that both appeals [the one on the denial of opening a criminal case against Kuchma, Lytvyn, Derkach, and Fere, the second one on the resolution to close a criminal case against Melnychenko] were returned to the head of the Pechersky court to select a judge who would consider them.
