A timeline that starts before Gongadze’s disappearance, highlights individuals at the center of the investigation and shows how investigators have failed to solve the vicious murder.
Ukraine’s law enforcement officials and prosecutors have repeatedly changed their stories and muddled facts with bizarre fiction in the nine years since journalist Georgiy Gongadze was murdered. Many view the official investigation as part of a cover-up to protect those who ordered the 2000 assassination.
After Gongadze’s Sept. 16, 2000, disappearance and before his headless corpse was discovered on Nov. 2 of that year, investigators suggested he may have gone into hiding to avoid paying off debt. Later, they hypothesized he may have been murdered in a banal act of violence by criminals. At one point in the investigation, prosecutors changed their story, saying they captured the murderers, whom they described as a mysterious group of cartoon-like characters nicknamed Cyclops and Sailor Boy. Already jailed for other crimes, they supposedly admitted to also killing Gongadze, but ended up dead so they couldn’t be tried in court.
But the victim is turning out to be right about events leading up to his own murder.
In an August 2000 interview with the Kyiv Post, Gongadze expressed fear for his life just weeks before being murdered. He was being followed by Ukrainian law enforcement officials. Despite all the attempts at coverup, the persistent suspicion remains that the murder was ordered by top Ukrainian officials, possibly even by Leonid Kuchma himself, despite the expresident’s consistent denials.
July-August 2000 — Georgiy Gongadze, founder and editor of the Ukrainska Pravda website, told a Kyiv Post reporter that he was being persecuted for his hard-hitting journalism. He complained to many people that he was being followed and harassed by the authorities, and that he feared for his life.
Sept. 16, 2000 — Gongadze kidnapped on his way home.
Sept. 17, 2000 — Criminal case launched into his disappearance.
Nov. 2, 2000 — Gongadze’s beheaded corpse found about 100 kilometers south of Kyiv; his head still has not been found.
Nov. 28, 2000 — Oleksandr Moroz, a leader of the Socialist Party and a leading opponent to President Leonid Kuchma, unveils audio recordings allegedly made by the president’s bodyguard, Mykola Melnychenko. The tapes seem to implicate Kuchma in Gongadze’s abduction. The tapes included conversations with voices resembling Kuchma, chief of staff Volodymyr Lytvyn, State Security Service head Leonid Derkach and Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko, discussing how to get rid of Gongadze, who had irritated Kuchma with his muckraking journalism.
Feb. 27, 2001 — General Prosecutor’s Office initiates criminal case into the intentional murder of Gongadze.
2002 – 2003 — Prosecutorial investigators suggest police officers could have been involved in the murder.
October 2003 — General prosecutor Svyatoslav Piskun arrests police general Oleksiy Pukach on suspicion of involvement in Gongadze’s disappearance and murder. Kuchma dismisses Piskun; Pukach is released from custody by a court ruling and ultimately flees the country.
December 2004 — Court reinstates Piskun as general prosecutor.
December 2004 — Victor Yushchenko propelled to Ukraine’s presidency by the Orange Revolution and promises that the case of Gongadze and other crimes from the past will be solved. Lytvyn continues to serve as speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, a post he assumed in 2002, when he stepped down as presidential chief of staff.
March 1, 2005 — Yushchenko announces that Gongadze’s assassins have been arrested.
March 3, 2005 — Piskun announces plans to question former interior minister Kravchenko as a witness in the Gongadze case. However, the next day, Kravchenko was found dead with two gunshots to the head in what investigators called a probable suicide. He was to appear for questioning that very day.
Nov. 23, 2005 — Kyiv Appellate Court commences proceedings in a case against Mykola Protasov, Valeriy Kostenko and Oleksandr Popovych, three police officers accused of physically killing Gongadze upon the orders of Pukach, who had fled.
November 2005 — European Court of Human Rights orders Ukraine to pay 100,000 euros to Myroslava Gongadze as compensation for moral and material losses due to the country’s inability to properly investigate the murder.
2006 — Ruling coalition led by Victor Yanukovych appoints Moroz as parliament speaker in place of Lytvyn.
Fall 2007 — Moroz loses parliament speaker job after his party falls short of the cutoff in a snap election.
March 15, 2008 — Protasov, Kostenko and Popovych sentenced to 12-13 years in prison for their participation in the murder. Pukach remains at large.
August 2008 — Moroz, who first blew the whistle on Gongadze’s murder, told a journalist that he didn’t think Kuchma was responsible. “Kuchma’s [emotional] complexes were used: his hot temper and lack of restraint. His statements were twisted and used very well. I do not think he had anything to do with the journalist’s death,” Moroz said, a few days before Kuchma’s lavish 70th birthday celebration.
December 2008 — Lytvyn regains position as parliament’s speaker after his faction in parliament forms coalition with the bloc led by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
February 2009 — The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopts a resolution demanding Ukraine finish the Gongadze investigation, and conduct proper investigations into the death of Kravchenko and the release from custody of Pukach. Ukraine’s prosecutors announce they will appoint international experts to examine the Melnychenko recordings, more than eight years after they surfaced.
May-June 2009 — Former Interior Ministry General Eduard Fere, a former associate of Kravchenko and key suspect in the Gongadze case, dies in a Ukrainian hospital, allegedly after spending the previous six years in a coma. The death of Fere is dubbed by Reporters Without Borders as a serious blow to the investigation. He and another former top law enforcement official under Kravchenko, Yuriy Degaev, are suspected of ordering Pukach to murder Gongadze, but it remains unclear to this day where the orders originated. Without testimony of Degaev, Fere, Kravchenko and Pukach, it may be impossible to identify who gave the orders.
July 22 2009 — Ukrainian law enforcement captures Pukach.
