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The press service said that law enforcers found the fragments early on Tuesday, and that an investigative group, along with experts, was currently working at the scene. The Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) has confirmed that the fragments of a skull recently found by police could belong to journalist Georgy Gongadze.

"The fragments of a skull, which could belong to journalist Georgy Gongadze were found outside the village of Sukholisy in Bila Tserkva district, Kyiv region, on Tuesday," the PGO press service told Interfax-Ukraine.

The press service said that law enforcers found the fragments early on Tuesday, and that an investigative group, along with experts, was currently working at the scene.

Commenting on why the skull was not found whole, but only in pieces, prosecutors said that an excavator that had earlier worked at the scene may have damaged the skull.

"Fragments have currently been found, and there's currently a chance to establish the identity [of the person they belong to]," the press service said.

As reported, journalist Georgy Gongadze went missing in Kyiv on September 16, 2000. In November 2000, a decapitated body believed, according to experts, to be that of the journalist, was found in a forest in Kyiv region.

The body has yet to be interred, as the journalist's mother, Lesia Gongadze, refuses to bury her son without his head.

In 2008, three former officials of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's foreign surveillance department and criminal intelligence unit - colonels Valeriy Kostenko, Mykola Protasov, and major Oleksandr Popovych, were found guilty of killing the journalist and sentenced to 12 (Kostenko and Popovych) and 13 (Protasov) years in prison.

The former chief of the main criminal investigation department at the ministry's foreign surveillance unit, Oleksiy Pukach, was long on the wanted list, and arrested in Zhytomyr region on July 21, 2009, as a result of a joint operation by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Prosecutor General's Office. However, it remains unclear who ordered the murder.

On July 23, Kyiv's Pechersky district court decided to remand Pukach in custody for two months.

SBU Deputy Head Vasyl Hrytsak said earlier that Pukach had confessed to complicity in the murder of the journalist, named people who had allegedly ordered the crime, and pointed to the whereabouts of the journalist's head. However, his lawyer said that Pukach had not provided this testimony.

The Prosecutor General's Office accused Pukach of being involved in the journalist's murder.

THE FOLLOWING IS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS VERSION OF THE STORY:

Ukrainian prosecutors say they have found skull fragments likely to be those of journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, who was decapitated nine years ago.

Prosecutors' spokesman Yuriy Boychenko said the remains were discovered Tuesday in a village outside Kiev. The find comes days after authorities arrested a key suspect in the crime. Security officials said Olexiy Pukach, a former top police official, has confessed to taking part in the murder.

Prosecutors say they believe Pukach strangled Gongadze. Three of his former subordinates were convicted last year.