Kuchma Stamps Out Press Freedom In Ukraine

This story from the Ukraine reads like something from a James Bond story. On 16th September 2000 Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze failed to return home to his wife and two children (who have spent the last 12 years living in the United States as political refugees.) Two months later, on 3 November 2000, a body was found in a forest in the Taraschanskyi Raion (district) of the Kiev Oblast (province), some 70 km (43 mi) outside Kiev. The corpse had been decapitated and doused in dioxine, apparently to make identification more difficult; forensic investigations found that the dioxine bath and decapitation had occurred while the victim was still alive.

Georgy Gongadze is seen here in an undated family photo

   Born in Georgia in 1969, Georgiy Ruslanovich Gongadze became a successful journalist, first in Georgia (where he reported on the conflict in Abkhazia) and then in Ukraine. His strongly independent line soon attracted hostility from the increasingly authoritarian government of Leonid Kuchma; during the October 1999 presidential election, his commentaries prompted a call from Kuchma's headquarters to say "that he had been blacklisted to be dealt with after the election."
   In April 2000, Gongadze co-founded a news website, Ukrayinska Pravda (Ukrainian Truth), as a means of sidestepping the government's increasing influence over the mainstream media. He observed that following the muzzling of a prominent pro-opposition newspaper after the election, "today there is practically no objective information available about Ukraine". The website specialized in political news and commentary, focusing particularly on President Kuchma, the country's wealthy "oligarchs" and the official media.
    In June 2000, Gongadze wrote an open letter to Ukraine's chief prosecutor about harassment from the SBU, the Ukrainian secret police, directed towards himself and his Ukrayinska Pravda colleagues and apparently related to an investigation into a murder case in the southern port of Odessa. He complained that had been forced into hiding because of harassment from the secret police, that he said he and his family were being followed, that his staff were being harassed, and that the SBU were spreading a rumor that he was wanted on a murder charge.
   While serving as head of the Ukrainian interior ministry's external surveillance service, Olexiy Pukach tracked Gongadze, the court found. Pukach testified that he had accidentally strangled the journalist with a belt while interrogating him about possible links to foreign states in September 2000.
   He further admitted severing Gongadze's head from his body, which was found in woodland in the Kiev area later that year. Part of the skull was found in 2009.
    On 14 September 2010, Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General issued a statement stating that prosecutors had concluded that former Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko had ordered Pukach to carry out the murder. Kraychenko committed suicide in 2005.
   First Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Renat Kuzmin claimed 20 February 2013 that his office had collected enough evidence confirming former President Leonid Kuchma's(1994-2005) responsibility for ordering Gongadze's assassination. Kuchma's replay the next day was: "This is another banal example of a provocation, which I've heard more than enough in the past 12 years"
    Under former President Leonid Kuchma opposition papers were closed and several journalists died in mysterious circumstances. Between 1995 and 2004 11 journalists were found hung or died in mysterious circumstances.