KIEV, Ukraine (AP) – An international human rights organization, parliamentary committee and politicians pressed Ukrainian authorities Wednesday for a full investigation into the killing of a journalist last week. Ihor Alexandrov, a V station director, was beaten by assailants armed with bats at the entrance o his office in the town of Slaviansk on July 3. He died of head injuries everal days later and was buried Monday with more than 5,000 people attending his funeral.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists appealed to President Leonid Kuchma to organize a thorough investigation of Alexandrov’s slaying. It said the case caused concern, especially as there was no end in sight to the probe into another notorious murder, that of critical Internet journalist Heorhiy Gongadze.
Gongadze went missing in September, and his beheaded body was found on the outskirts of Kiev a few weeks later. Opposition groups have accused Kuchma of being involved, and staged protests for months despite the president’s strong denials.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian parliament’s committee on press freedom, along with two parties, demanded that the government, the state prosecutor’s office and the Interior Ministry take urgent measures to solve Alexandrov’s killing.
The actions against journalists and mass media are obstacles on Ukraine’s way to democracy and the creation of civil society, the committee said in a statement, according to the Interfax news agency.
In a message to Alexandrov’s widow Tuesday, Kuchma termed the journalist’s death a Мpersonal loss and a loss for all of Ukraine.љ He ordered a full and transparent investigation, taking it under his personal control. But Kuchma cautioned against making hasty conclusions, saying these could lead to dangerous consequences and benefit МUkraine’s enemies.
љAlexandrov ran the TOR television company. In 1998, a local court sentenced him to two years in prison and banned him from working as a journalist for five years after finding he violated laws on campaign coverage, according to the international group Reporters Without Borders.
But he took his case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, and was acquitted last year.љ Some media reports suggested Wednesday that he was killed because of a television program in which two officers spoke of alleged corruption within elite police units.
