The lawyer for the family of a slain Ukrainian journalist said Friday she doubts the recent arrest of a key suspect will help police track down those responsible for the crime.
Valentina Telychenko, representing Heorhiy Gongadze’s widow, said she doesn’t trust Ukrainian investigators and believes the authorities are trying to conceal the true organizers of the grisly murder.
Gongadze, who wrote about high-profile corruption, was kidnapped in September 2000 and his beheaded body was discovered outside Kiev several months later.
Opponents and rights groups accused then-President Leonid Kuchma of involvement in the slaying. The killing sparked months of protests against Kuchma after his former bodyguard released tape recordings in which a voice that sounded like Kuchma’s is heard complaining about the journalist and suggesting subordinates deal with the problem.
Kuchma has denied the allegations.
Last week, authorities arrested former senior police officer Olexiy Pukach, the main suspect in the case who had been in hiding for several years. With his help coroners located what they believe are fragments of Gongadze’s skull and are now trying to identify them.
The arrest occurred during a visit to Ukraine by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. Ukrainian officials denied there was any connection, but pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko has vowed to fight corruption and bring killers to justice. He also is trying to shake off Russian influence and courting U.S. and European support as he aims to integrate his country with the West.
Prosecutors allege that Pukach took Gongadze to the site of the murder with the help of three subordinates, who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms last year, and then personally strangled him. Experts believe Gongadze was decapitated after his death.
But Telychenko said she was pessimistic that the arrest will help solve the crime. “Pukach’s detention is very important, but it doesn’t guarantee that those who ordered (the crime) will be uncovered,” she told reporters.
She said she asked the prosecutors to assign a new group of investigators to the case and to conduct forensic tests of the skull with the participation of foreign experts.
Telychenko suggested that Ukrainian authorities were more interested in pretending to having solved the high-profile crime to score points ahead of January presidential elections than to find the true masterminds. “I have doubts that there is a political will to uncover those who ordered” the killing, she said.
Telychenko accused the authorities of collaborating with the masterminds of the crime, who she believes were senior government officials in Kuchma’s administration, and hampering the investigation. She refused to be more specific about which officials are allegedly stalling the probe.
“I don’t know what kind of agreements the masterminds have with the current authorities; all the time I feel that the investigation is being hampered,” Telychenko said.
The Gongadze case remains a major test of Yushchenko’s commitment to the rule of law. He came to power on a wave of pro-democracy and anti-corruption protests in 2004.
