You're reading: Prosecutors confirm that Gongadze investigation to continue, but can’t say if Kuchma is a suspect

The investigation into the murder of muckraking journalist Georgiy Gongadze, a case which has been covered up and haunted Ukraine for a decade, will continue in the near term, according to Ukrainian prosecutors. But they can’t confirm whether former president Leonid Kuchma and other close associates who have been implicated in the murder case by testimony and the so-called Melnychenko audio recordings, are considered suspects.

Speaking with the Kyiv Post, Yuriy Boychenko, the General Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson, officially confirmed reports citing unnamed sources that the pre-trial investigation period on the case has been prolonged until Dec. 14.

But, Boychenko refused to reveal whether investigators are considering the possibility that Kuchma and his former chief of staff at the time of Gongadze’s murder, current parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, could be involved. Investigators can not reveal secretes of an ongoing investigation, he added.

The development follows a Sept. 14 announcement by the General Prosecutor’s office that investigators had wrapped up their case, finding former police general Oleksiy Pukach guilty of committing the murder upon orders from the now deceased former Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko. The later was a close associate and friend of Kuchma. In the secretly recorded Melnychenko tapes, Kuchma is heard asking Kravchenko and officials to do away with Gongadze, whose reporting was highly critical of Ukraine’s leadership. A lawyer representing Gongadze’s widow said that the prosecutor’s case also includes testimony from Pukach that implicates both Kuchma and Lytvyn in the murder. But the original case presented by prosecutors this month only had Kravchenko, who died of two gunshot wounds to his head in 2005, as giving orders to kill Gongadze.

Many journalists and politicians voiced fears that all the blame would be hung on the deceased Kravchenko, despite evidence that implicated Kuchma and Lytvyn to various degrees.

President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration has also voiced concern that the investigation would not be seen as thorough if all the blame was hung on one dead individual.

On Sept.20 Serhiy Lyovochkin, presidential chief of staff, said that that it would not be good if the entire crime is “hung on one person.” But he stressed that concrete evidence was needed to clearly implicate other individuals.

Hanna Herman, Lyovochkin’s deputy, also said in a recent Kyiv Post interview that the investigation should be carried on further and in the most objective way so that the Ukrainian and international communities would trust its results and find closure.

Herman, however, also expressed doubt that the case would be fully solved, saying that so much time has passed since it was committed.

The following is a transcript of the telephone interview between the Kyiv Post and Yuriy Boychenko, the General Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson.

K.P.: Could you please confirm or disprove information that the investigators will go further in investigating the Gongadze case?
Y.B.: The pre-trial investigation has been prolonged until Dec. 14 as the parties involved – the claimant and the defendant – need more time to go through the files of the criminal case and more time is needed to produce the indictment in the final edition.

K.P.: Why was this decision made? Did the attorneys ask you for this?

Y.B.: No, the investigators saw that the parties needed more time to go through the case before the preliminary investigation was over so they decided to carry on the case so the claimant and the defendant would have enough time to study out the files of the criminal case, as stipulated by the Criminal (procedural) Code, Article 217-218. And, when it’s done the final edition of the indictment will be transferred to the court. This is why the period of pre-trial investigation was prolonged.

K.P.: Could you please confirm or deny information that investigators will look into the possibility that higher officials, or other individuals, could have given Kravchenko the order to kill Gongadze?
Y.B.: This is a part of the pre-trail investigation, so I can’t comment on it. We are not allowed to reveal secrets of an ongoing investigation before it goes to court. Any issues that appear will be investigated. But again, we are not allowed to disseminate any information concerning the pre-trial investigation.”