Several forensic tests have confirmed that cranial fragments found in the countryside not far from Kyiv a month ago are pieces of the skull of Georgy Gongadze, an independent Ukrainian journalist who went missing in 2000 and is believed to have been assassinated, a lawyer for Gongadze's widow said on Thursday.
Gongadze disappeared in Kyiv on September 16, 2000. Experts came to the conclusion that a headless corpse found in a forest in Tarascha district in Kyiv region in November of the same year was likely to be his body.
The body remains unburied as the journalist’s mother, Lesia Gongadze, has refused to have it interred before the head is found.
On July 28, pieces of bone were dug up not far from the village of Sukholisy, Bila Tserkva district, that were suspected to be fragments of Gongadze’s skull.
Ukrainian experts have carried out “several forensic medical tests, including a photograph test, that have confirmed that the skull is part of the body,” Valentyna Telychenko, legal representative of Gongadze’s widow, Myroslava Gongadze, told Interfax.
The tests showed that the skull pieces had been lying in the soil for seven to ten years, Telychenko said.
The lawyer said Ukrainian experts had not yet finished their tests and that there still was a DNA identification test to be made. The DNA test would, however, most likely be done by U.S. experts.
“I have written two requests to them and have received no refusal from them,” she said.
Myroslava Gongadze has insisted that the DNA test be done abroad.
