Quotable notes

"We have reasons today to say that the murder of Giya [Heorhii] Gongadze has been solved. Giya Gongadze's murderers have been detained. They are now giving testimony.

"Yesterday, when we were discussing how to conduct the operation, I learned some circumstances of the last moments of the life of Giya Gongadze. It was a horrendous death, which has been corroborated by testimonies of the murderers. It was hard to believe that in this millennium there are people among civil servants who have such anger, such hatred and such animal behavior toward their citizens.

"My main goal today, together with law-enforcement agencies, is to find the answer to the main question: who organized and committed that murder. The investigation has now reached that stage.

"I think the fact that the murder has not been solved for four and a half years but was solved in several weeks under the new authorities proves that the previous government not only lacked the political will to solve it ... but, what is important to say today, the previous government sheltered the murderers."

- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on March 1, as quoted by the Ukrainska Pravda website and cited by RFE/RL Belarus and Ukraine Report.

"I think it will be possible to say the case is resolved once both those who ordered the killing and those who carried it out are named. So far, we have not heard the names of those who ordered it."

- Myroslava Gongadze, the wife of Heorhii Gongadze, in an interview with RFE/RL on March 2.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 13, 2005, No. 11, Vol. LXXIII

| Home Page |