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4<br />
No.47 SEPTEMBER 20, 2018<br />
TOPIC OF THE DAY<br />
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
By Ivan KAPSAMUN, photos<br />
by Mykola TYMCHENKO, The Day<br />
Areader recently came to our<br />
editorial office to express<br />
indignation at the failure of the<br />
authorities and the public to<br />
keep the grave of the murdered<br />
journalist Georgy Gongadze adequately<br />
maintained. She lives not far from<br />
St. Nicholas the Miracle-Worker’s<br />
Church on the Riverfront, where the<br />
journalist was buried in March 2016, and<br />
can see the grave’s condition. She says the<br />
Ukrainian and Georgian flags there have<br />
faded and nobody is going to replace<br />
them. “Otherwise, thanks to churchmen,<br />
the grave is more or less well-tended,<br />
flowers were planted, although was<br />
neither a photograph nor a plate for a long<br />
time – just as nameless grave with a big<br />
stone cross has also been there before,”<br />
the Kyivite says. “As far as I know, both<br />
the authorities and the journalist’s family<br />
are not taking enough care.”<br />
Yet, taking into account the course of<br />
the Gongadze-Podolsky case for many<br />
years, when we saw and still see inadequate<br />
attention, suppression of information,<br />
falsifications venality, and unwillingness<br />
to finish the investigation of<br />
crimes against Gongadze and public activist<br />
Oleksii Podolsky, there is nothing<br />
extraordinary in this. However, it does<br />
not mean we should keep silent.<br />
It will be recalled that the perpetrators<br />
of Gongadze’s murder are or were<br />
serving prison terms. They are former police<br />
officers Mykola Protasov (13 years,<br />
died in prison in 2016), Valerii Kostenko<br />
and Oleksandr Popovych (12 years each).<br />
Their sentences came into force in March<br />
2008. In the case of Podolsky, who was abducted<br />
and savagely beaten on June 9,<br />
2000, “uniformed turncoats” were also<br />
convicted – in 2007 the Appeals Court of<br />
Kyiv sentenced Colonel Mykola Naumets<br />
and Major Oleh Maryniak to three years<br />
in prison for abuse of power.<br />
Meanwhile, the epic of the main perpetrator<br />
(in both cases, Oleksii Pukach,<br />
chief of the Interior Ministry’s Outdoor<br />
Surveillance Department, commanded<br />
the police squads), is still on. Kyiv’s<br />
Pecherskyi District Court sentenced<br />
Pukach to life imprisonment and the<br />
Appeals Court of Kyiv upheld this ruling<br />
later. But the parties to the trial did not<br />
stop at this and filed cassation appeals.<br />
The High Specialized Court handed<br />
down the following ruling at its latest session<br />
on May 31, 2017: “Petition the<br />
Prosecutor General’s Office again to enter<br />
information about blackmail and<br />
threats into the National Register of<br />
Pretrial Investigations for further inquiry<br />
[it became known in August 2017<br />
that the prosecuting office registered<br />
this crime at last – Author]; instruct<br />
chief justices of the Kyiv’s Pecherskyi<br />
District Court and the Appeals Court of<br />
Kyiv to declassify the audio and video<br />
recordings of the first- and appellate-level<br />
court sessions; debar Valentyna Telychenko<br />
from further participation in the<br />
Pukach case and offer the aggrieved party,<br />
Myroslava Gongadze, representation<br />
of her interests, if necessary, by a different<br />
representative.”<br />
Unfortunately, as years go by, there<br />
is no essential progress in this case. Presidents<br />
and prosecutors general have been<br />
changing, Maidans were held, European<br />
organizations passed resolutions long<br />
ago with a call to investigate the cases, but<br />
the question of crime organizers still remains<br />
open in juridical terms. Why is this<br />
occurring? Why do we have to raise this<br />
question over and over again?<br />
Here are just a few examples of the latest<br />
events. The Kuchma-Pinchuk family<br />
traditionally holds the annual Yalta European<br />
Strategy forum in these days of<br />
September (this year on the 13th-15th) on<br />
an anniversary of Gongadze’s murder. The<br />
very list of participants from Ukraine and<br />
abroad makes it easy to conclude why the<br />
case is not being investigated. The yesukraine.org<br />
website says this year’s forum<br />
will receive more than 600 leading politicians,<br />
diplomats, businesspeople,public activists,<br />
and experts from 28 countries.<br />
Among the Ukrainians, it is President<br />
Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister<br />
Volodymyr Hroisman, Kyiv Mayor Vitali<br />
SEPTEMBER 15, 2017. AN ACTION IN MEMORY OF ALL THE UKRAINIAN JOURNALISTS WHO DIED IN THE LINE OF DUTY<br />
WAS HELD IN DOWNTOWN KYIV ON THE EVE OF THE 17th ANNIVERSARY OF THE MURDER OF JOURNALIST GEORGY<br />
GONGADZE. THE POSTER READS: “GEORGY, WE HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN”<br />
Eighteen years of impunity<br />
Expert: “Ukraine needs a juridical and moral assessment<br />
of criminal actions, including the Gongadze-Podolsky<br />
case, as an antidote against Kuchmism”<br />
Klitschko, Foreign Minister Pavlo<br />
Klimkin, as well as Yuliia Tymoshenko,<br />
Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, Anatolii Hrytsenko,<br />
Andrii Kobolev, Svitlana Zalishchuk,<br />
Serhii Leshchenko, Mustafa<br />
Nayyem, and others. Among the foreigners<br />
are Kersti Kaljulaid, President of<br />
Estonia; Kurt Volker, special representative<br />
of the US State Department for<br />
Ukraine negotiations; Alejandro Alvargonzalez,<br />
Assistant Secretary General for<br />
Political Affairs and Security Policy,<br />
NATO; Norbert Roettgen, Chairman of<br />
the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee;<br />
Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of<br />
the UK; Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO<br />
Secretary General in 2009-14; Condoleezza<br />
Rice, 66th US Secretary of State<br />
(2005-09); Ksenia Sobchak, Russian public<br />
activist.<br />
It looks like the Manafort case teaches<br />
no lessons. It will be recalled that Rick<br />
Gates, a former business partner of the<br />
American political consultant Paul Manafort,<br />
said in a court that Ukrainian<br />
businessman Viktor Pinchuk was one of<br />
Manafort’s clients. “Gates revealed that<br />
Pinchuk paid Manafort through a company<br />
called Plymouth Consultants Ltd.<br />
for what he described as a legal project.<br />
He did not provide details about how<br />
much was paid or when,” The New York<br />
Times reports.<br />
Another negative signal in the past<br />
few days was the news on Kuchma<br />
GEORGY GONGADZE’S GRAVE ON THE TERRITORY OF ST. NICHOLAS THE<br />
MIRACLE-WORKER’S CHURCH ON THE RIVERFRONT. KYIV, SEPTEMBER 2018<br />
Ukraine Foundation’s website that Kuchma<br />
had received an Order of Saint Andrew<br />
the First-Called, 2nd class, the highest<br />
award of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church<br />
(of Kyiv, not Moscow, Patriarchate).<br />
What for? “For merits in reviving spirituality<br />
in Ukraine, efforts in establishing<br />
the Local Ukrainian Orthodox<br />
Church, and on the occasion of his 80th<br />
birthday.” Moreover, Leonid Kuchma<br />
and Patriarch Filaret discussed the granting<br />
of the Tomos of Autocephaly to the<br />
Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In short, it<br />
is a disgrace!<br />
What do The Day’s experts think of<br />
the never-ending Gongadze-Podolsky<br />
case?<br />
● “NOBODY HAS EVEN BEGUN<br />
TO FULFILL THE HIGH<br />
COURT’S DECISION TO<br />
DECLASSIFY AUDIO<br />
RECORDINGS”<br />
Tetiana KOSTINA, Oleksii Podolsky’s<br />
lawyer:<br />
“The situation with the high-profile<br />
Gongadze-Podolsky case, undoubtedly a<br />
crucial and particularly important criminal<br />
case in the history of this country, is<br />
arousing deep concern and indignation.<br />
“Firstly, nobody has even begun to<br />
fulfill the high court’s decision to declassify<br />
the audio recordings of Pecherskyi<br />
District Court sessions since May last<br />
year. The command to so, in a ‘mayhem<br />
style,’ must have come from Ukraine’s<br />
top leadership. Pecherskyi District Court<br />
judges are unlikely to have risked breaking<br />
the law so brazenly and cynically<br />
without an instruction from above.<br />
“Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has<br />
attempted, contrary to the procedure, to<br />
replace the reporting judge in this case.<br />
This know-how of a reincarnated cassation<br />
court will be the object of a serious<br />
discussion about the state of justice in the<br />
near future – as well as the premeditated,<br />
deliberate, and systematic alteration<br />
of the procedural law for the only purpose<br />
to protect Kuchma and other high-profile<br />
individuals from testifying in court even<br />
as witnesses.<br />
“As for the criminal case against<br />
crime organizers, Prosecutor General<br />
Yurii Lutsenko still refuses, absolutely<br />
unlawfully, to recognize Oleksii Podolsky<br />
as an aggrieved party, which means that<br />
he finally and irreversibly flouted all<br />
the rules of decency and transgressed law,<br />
morality, and international commitments<br />
of Ukraine. I am sure the Prosecutor General<br />
Office headed by the leader of the<br />
‘Ukraine without Kuchma’ campaign<br />
does not recognize Podolsky as an aggrieved<br />
party in the organizers case in order<br />
not to disturb the luxurious wellbeing<br />
of Kuchma and his Family.<br />
“Providing impunity to the organizers,<br />
Mr. Lutsenko as Prosecutor General<br />
is already planning his future political<br />
career and is not even recalling his longtime<br />
hypocritical oaths to bring the organizers<br />
of crimes against Gongadze and<br />
Podolsky to justice.”<br />
● “NO RULE-OF-LAW SYSTEM<br />
HAS BEEN CREATED<br />
IN UKRAINE SO FAR”<br />
Bohdan TSIUPIN, Ukrainian journalist,<br />
London:<br />
“In my view, the Gongadze case is still<br />
unfinished because no rule-of-law system<br />
has been created in Ukraine so far. This<br />
is why top officials, influential politicians,<br />
and people in the money can easily<br />
manipulate legal proceedings. Ukrainian<br />
courts can punish perpetrators, smalltime<br />
criminals, or even men of straw. But<br />
as soon as a crime’s trail leads to influential<br />
circles, Ukrainian justice founders.<br />
“The entire Ukrainian society is responsible<br />
for this state of affairs because<br />
the situation will not change if there<br />
is no prevailing opinion. Ukraine needs a<br />
very broad-based education and massscale<br />
awareness. Many Ukrainians cannot<br />
influence processes in the country due to<br />
being poorly educated and passive. For example,<br />
an enormous number of people<br />
cannot even express their opinion in the<br />
official language or adequately form a<br />
document.<br />
“In the West, those who keep track of<br />
events like this may know about the<br />
Gongadze case. Such things cannot remain<br />
etched on popular mentality for a<br />
long time because Westerners are also<br />
concerned first of all about urgent problems<br />
in their countries. Do many people<br />
in Ukraine know or will they remember<br />
for a long time about the recent mafia<br />
murder of journalist Caruana Galizia in<br />
Malta or any other similar cases?”<br />
● “PROSECUTORS RECEIVED<br />
NO COMMAND FROM<br />
LUTSENKO<br />
OR POROSHENKO<br />
TO DO ANYTHING<br />
ABOUT KUCHMA”<br />
Ihor LUTSENKO, Member<br />
of the Ukrainian Parliament:<br />
“The cause of Kuchma’s impunity is<br />
that his family is one of Ukraine’s biggest<br />
media moguls. They own large enterprises,<br />
financial resources, and, accordingly,<br />
still exert influence on the foreign<br />
and domestic policies of Ukraine. In the<br />
past few years Kuchma has also been one<br />
of the active Ukrainian negotiators in<br />
Minsk, and this role gives him sufficient<br />
protection. Kuchma’s son-in-law<br />
Pinchuk is also trying, less successfully,<br />
to play the role of a link with the US elite.<br />
They are allegedly respected for the international<br />
clout they have gained for<br />
many years. This is why prosecutors received<br />
no command from Lutsenko or<br />
Poroshenko to do anything about Kuchma<br />
even if they know about his role in the<br />
crimes.<br />
“Conformism still prevails in Ukrainian<br />
society, and some of its members are<br />
full of love for money, glory, and influence<br />
which the Kuchma family can provide<br />
with the help of its resources. Having<br />
no personal interest in the Gongadze<br />
issue, most politicians think it is better<br />
not to quarrel with Pinchuk – it is more<br />
beneficial to appear on his TV channels<br />
and not to recall the annoying Gongadze<br />
story. Besides, most of the institutions<br />
that allegedly deal with the freedom of<br />
speech, analysis of the Ukrainian media,<br />
and protection of journalists’ rights, especially<br />
the ones that are closer to international<br />
donors, are lobbyist organizations.<br />
This is another instrument of influence<br />
rather than a way to protect<br />
journalists and the freedom of speech.<br />
“In the final analysis, we cannot help<br />
but recall such an objective factor as the<br />
course of time and personnel turnover in<br />
journalism. For example, the new generation<br />
on television consists of journalists<br />
for whom the Gongadze story is<br />
something as archaic as the Pereiaslav Rada<br />
or World War Two. They did not witness<br />
18-year-old events, so this story is<br />
very far from them. But those who want<br />
to be a true journalist must, of course,<br />
know the tragic story of Gongadze.”<br />
Read more on our website