You're reading: Key facts about Gongadze case

Ukraine has formally opened a criminal case against former president Leonid Kuchma on suspicion of involvement in organising the murder of opposition journalist Georgiy Gongadze in 2000.

Following are key facts about the case which haunted the last years of Kuchma’s rule that ended in 2005 when pro-Western politician Viktor Yushchenko was swept to power in Ukraine’s ‘Orange Revolution’.

– The 31-year-old Gongadze, who wrote for an Internet journal and was a critic of Kuchma and top businessmen, disappeared in September 2000. Two months later, his headless corpse was found outside Kiev.

– Subsequently, a leading opposition politician made public audio tapes linking Kuchma to Gongadze’s death. The tapes were part of secret recordings made between 1998 and 2000 by a bodyguard in Kuchma’s security staff who was granted asylum in the United States. Kuchma has always denied involvement in the murder and the authenticity of the tapes has never been confirmed.

– Ukraine’s chief prosecutor said in 2005 that Gongadze had been abducted in central Kiev by high-ranking interior ministry officers, suffocated at a site outside the city and his body then doused in petrol and set ablaze.

– The body of former Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko, who was linked to Gongadze’s murder, was found in his country house outside the capital in March 2005. Investigators say he appeared to have killed himself.

– In September 2010, the state prosecutor’s office said Kravchenko was the person who had ordered Gongadze’s killing. – Two interior ministry officers are in jail for their part in the murder and a third person, former police general Oleksiy Pukach, is awaiting trial.