You're reading: Journalist murderer’s verdict appealed

 The widow of slain journalist Georgiy Gongadze, Myroslava Gongadze, appealed the Jan. 29 court decision which found former police general Oleksiy Pukach guilty of murder and sentenced him to life in prison. 

Her legal representative
Valentyna Telychenko submitted the appeal on Feb. 13. “The appeal (is based on a)
lack of consistency in the pre-trial investigation and the indictment of
Pukach. (It resulted in a) failure to establish motives of the charged
offender,” Telychenko said.

She explained that the
prosecutor failed to charge Pukach under article 93 part U, contract murder,
despite finding that he acted on orders from third persons.

While she says her client
is satisfied with the verdict – life in prison is the most severe charge
foreseen by Ukrainian legislation – the investigation should aim for finding
those who ordered Pukach to kill the journalist.  

Pukach was sentenced for
the Sept.
16, 2000 kidnapping
and murder of Georgiy Gongadze in a forest near Kyiv.  

Pukach’s lawyer, Hryhoriy
Demydenko agrees.

He says he filed an appeal
on Feb. 12 but did not elaborate. Previously he told the Kyiv Post that he is
not satisfied with the verdict since the court did not establish his client’s
motives.

Telychenko is one of few persons
privy to all the testimony, including the state secrets that authorities used
as a justification to try Pukach in secret. She says that Pukach testified that he was
acting on orders of the former Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko, ex-President Leonid Kuchma and
his former chief of staff, Volodymyr Lytvyn.

Telychenko says Pukach testified that he was in Kravchenko’s office
when Kuchma called him on a government telephone line and asked if Kravchenko
is working “in the direction of Gongadze.”

“Pukach said that after this he had received the
order from Kravchenko to kill, burn and bury Gongadze. Pukach also said that he
was in Kravchenko’s office in the Interior Ministry when Lytvyn walked in and
Kravchenko told everyone to leave the cabinet, except for Pukach (and Lytvyn).
The three of them had a conversation about the kidnapping and murder of Gongadze,” said Telychenko.

Kuchma and Lytvyn have both previously denied any
involvement in the murder of Gongadze. Kravchenko died suspiciously from two gunshot wounds to the head on
March 4, 2005, the day he was supposed to give testimony in the Gongadze murder
investigation.

The Kyiv court of
appeal hearing is expected to start in some three months. Telychenko says, if
turned down, her client will write to the Committee of Minister of Council of Europe and then
submit the case in the European Court of Human Rights.    

Kyiv Post
staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can be reached at [email protected]