Prosecutor’s decision to remove contract killing charge in Gongadze case challenged

Valentina Telychenko, the lawyer representing Georgy Gongadze’s widow, has lodged an appeal with the Kyiv Court of Appeal against the ruling from the Pechersky District Court in Kyiv which on 31 January upheld the Prosecutor General’s decision to remove the charge involving contract killing against Oleksiy Pukach.

On 7 February Ms Telychenko filed the appeal in which she asks the court to overturn the first instance court’s ruling and revoke the Prosecutor’s decision.

She stated that regardless of whether the appeal is allowed, she wishes the public and experts to have the opportunity to determine whether those rulings were lawful.

The decision in December last year to remove the contract killing charge followed an investigation which found that the order to kill Gongadze had been issued by the former Minister of the Interior Yury Kravchenko who died in early  2005.  Kravchenko, despite having two gunshot wounds to the head, is officially said to have committed suicide.

All of this has been widely seen, both in Ukraine and abroad, as aimed at preventing any real investigation into who really ordered the killing to protect those who either are or were in very high positions.

New information from http://ukranews.com/ru/news/ukraine/2011/02/07/36730