Ukraine's second President (1994-2005) Leonid Kuchma has said that during his visit to the main investigation department of the Prosecutor General's Office on Wednesday he studied the records of examinations in the criminal case on journalist Georgy Gongadze's murder.
"Today, I was shown the records of examinations, nothing else," he told journalists in Kyiv on Wednesday after leaving the PGO.
However, Kuchma did not specify what kind of examinations he had studied.
"Hundreds of examinations were held [as part of this case] over all these years, [and] examinations were conducted all the time. All the records of these examinations are included in the case, and I need to study them to see whether they are relevant or not," he said.
The criminal case against Kuchma on his involvement in the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze was opened on March 21, 2011. The second Ukrainian president is charged with exceeding his authority and giving unlawful instructions to Interior Ministry officials, which subsequently led to Gongadze’s murder.
Kuchma was charged with exceeding authority or abuse of power under part 3, Article 166 of the 1960 Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Journalist Gongadze disappeared in Kyiv on September 16, 2000. Experts believe that a decapitated body found in a forest outside Kyiv two months later could be the journalist’s.
