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Journalist's case: a litmus test for Ukraine

Tom Parfitt

Moscow: Three policemen accused of killing a high-profile investigative journalist went on trial in Ukraine on Monday as the wife of the dead man claimed the defendants were being used as scapegoats.

The murder of Georgy Gongadze, who was decapitated and buried in a shallow grave, was one of the flashpoints that provoked the Orange Revolution that brought President Viktor Yushchenko to power last winter. Ukraine's handling of the case is being seen as a test of the country's democratic credentials as it grooms itself for European integration.

Mr Yushchenko has said that solving the case is a priority, but he and other public figures have been forced to deny hindering the investigation to protect allies who knew about the murder plot.

Secretly recorded tapes that appeared after the journalist's death seemed to suggest that the former President Leonid Kuchma had ordered the killing because of the 31-year-old reporter's writings about corruption. The police officers Mykola Protasov, Valery Kostenko and Alexander Popovych were charged with killing the reporter, who worked for the Ukrayinskaya Pravda website. They were arrested last February.

Speaking outside the court in Kiev, Gongadze's wife, Myroslava, said his mother was not attending the hearing because ``she is certain that the men who sit in the court today are scapegoats, and not the real people who ordered this crime''. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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