Lawyer: Several people ordered Gongadze's murder

Valentyna Telychenko, the lawyer for Myroslava Gongadze, the widow of journalist Georgy Gongadze, has said she believes that several people ordered the killing of the journalist. She said this at an international conference, entitled "Ten Years Later. Georgy Gongadze's Murder Not Disclosed: A Search for New Ways to Combat Impunity," in Kyiv on Thursday.

The lawyer recalled that according to the Prosecutor General's Office, Gongadze's murder was ordered by the deceased, former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko.

"I only yesterday started to study the materials of the case, but even before that and now I was and am confident that the current scenario of the murder in which [the former head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's external surveillance department, Oleksiy] Pukach, [is accused of killing the journalist] is unlikely," Telychenko said.

She said that if Kravchenko was the only person who ordered the murder, then it was necessary to establish his motives, and "accordingly, identify other people, because he could not be the only one [who ordered the journalist's killing]."

She also said that since Kravchenko and Georgy Gongadze were not familiar, then Kravchenko had had no grounds for such actions.

"If Kravchenko was the person who ordered the killing, then who else ordered the murder, and why?" Telychenko said.