Suspect in Ukrainian journalist’s murder flips on former president
The ongoing trial over the murder of Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze — one of the key events in the lead-up to the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution — took another twist with suspect Olexiy Pukach fingering former president Leonid Kuchma as the mastermind of the murder. RIA-Novosti reports: Olexiy Pukach, who has confessed to carrying out the ...
The ongoing trial over the murder of Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze -- one of the key events in the lead-up to the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution -- took another twist with suspect Olexiy Pukach fingering former president Leonid Kuchma as the mastermind of the murder. RIA-Novosti reports:
The ongoing trial over the murder of Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze — one of the key events in the lead-up to the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution — took another twist with suspect Olexiy Pukach fingering former president Leonid Kuchma as the mastermind of the murder. RIA-Novosti reports:
Olexiy Pukach, who has confessed to carrying out the killing, testified in court on Tuesday that he was acting on Kuchma’s orders, according to a witness in the trial that is closed to the public.
Pukach, a former general at the Ministry of the Interior, was arrested in 2009 after six years on the run and was said by Ukrainian prosecutors to have confessed to personally strangling and beheading Gongadze.
"He clearly said: it was Kuchma," the witness, Olexiy Podolskyi, told RIA Novosti.
Kuchma has been charged with abuse of power — but not murder — in connection with Gongadze’s killing. Audio recording made public in 2000 feature a voice resembling Kuchma’s suggesting that Gongadze be "kidnapped by Chechens".
As Nadia Diuk discussed back in April, the prosecution of the former president doesn’t seem to fit the pattern of Ukraine’s current government, led by onetime Kuchma-ally Viktor Yanukovych, which has been accused of abuse of power and the selective prosecution of enemies like former Prime Minister and Orange icon Yulia Tymoshenko.
Putting Kuchma behind bars might allow the Yanukovych government to deflet some of the criticism it’s received over the jailing of Tymoshenko. In any case, with these two on trials, it seems like Ukraine is set to continue refighting the battles of 2004.
Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating
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