9 Dec 2010 | Index Index, minipost
The prosecutor general’s office has completed its investigation into the role that Oleksiy Pukach, a former intelligence office played in the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze and has announced is unable to lay any further charges despite evidence linking politicians to the murder. Pukach who at the time of the killing was the chief of the external surveillance department at the Ukrainian Interior Ministry will be put on trial in January. Gongadze was a Ukrainian journalist of Georgian descent killed in 2000. He was investigating high-level corruption allegedly involving senior officials, including president Leonid Kuchma. In March 2008, three former police officers were convicted for their role in Gongadze’s murder.
20 Sep 2010 | News and features
The unsolved case of Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze highlights concerns for press freedom in post-Soviet states
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6 Sep 2010 | Index Index, minipost
A witness in the case of missing journalist Vasyl Klymentyev has also gone missing. According to deputy editor Petro Matvienko, the key witness disappeared last week. He refused to reveal the person’s name for fear of jeopardising the investigation, but said he had verified the information with law enforcement agencies. The police department in Kharkiv claimed no knowledge of the witness’s disappearance. In a further development, Klymentyev’s lawyer was locked in his appartment by police. Officers forced their way into Vyacheslav Ismaylov’s home on 2 September, and barricaded him inside, saying they were investigating a case involving him. The newspaper lawyer fears that police could plant something in the appartment that would be compromising to him.
24 Aug 2010 | Index Index, minipost
Police in eastern Ukraine have reclassified the case of a missing journalist as “premeditated murder“. Vasyl Klymentyev, chief editor and reporter for newspaper Novyi Stil, was last seen on 11 August getting into a BMW with an unknown man. The Kharkiv-based weekly newspaper is well known for reporting on corruption in local government and law enforcement. Klymentyev’s most recent articles criticised a local prosecutor and head of the regional fiscal police, and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged investigators to focus on his journalism as a motive. Klymentyev’s deputy said that the editor had been threatened several times before and had been offered bribes to keep damaging information quiet.
