Kyiv court indefinitely postpones its hearings of Gongadze case

KYIV - The Kyiv City Appellate Court on February 17 postponed for an indefinite period its hearings of the Gongadze case, pending a state expert's conclusions about whether case materials contain information that may be considered state secrets, reported Ukrinform.

The court began hearing the Gongadze case on January 9; it decided to hold its sessions behind closed doors due to the nature of information that was likely to be divulged.

All three defendants, former police officers Valerii Kostenko, Mykola Protasov and Oleksander Popovych, confirmed their written obligation to divulge no state secrets, to which they had access while on duty as police officers. Another key figure, former police Gen. Oleksii Pukach, has been declared wanted.

Two defendants in the Heorhii Gongadze murder case have pleaded guilty, while the third has pleaded partly guilty, noted Ukrinform on February 10, quoting state prosecutor Vladimir Shilov. Mr. Shilov declined to name the defendants, saying a recently adopted ruling forbids the release of such information before the court passes its verdict.

Mr. Gongadze, a journalist who founded the Internet newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda, disappeared on September 16, 2000. In November 2000 his decapitated body was found in the Tarascha forest outside Kyiv.

President Viktor Yushchenko on February 14 called on the Kyiv Appellate Court to ensure openness of the trial.

"Considering the public resonance surrounding the court trial of the Gongadze case, the political conjectures that are not strengthening confidence in the judicial system and taking into account other reasons discrediting the country, lowering its authority, I, as the president, will appeal to the court to ensure openness of the process within the framework of national legislation," Mr. Yushchenko said, according to the Ukrinform news service.

He stressed that there is nothing to hide in the case, that all the secrets have long come out into the open, and that journalists and other people already have sufficiently detailed knowledge of the materials that could be considered state secrets.

Ukrinform also reported that Justice Minister Serhii Holovatyi issued an appeal for openness. He noted that, by holding the trial behind closed doors, the court is violating the principle of openness that is enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine and the European Convention on Human Rights. Mr. Holovatyi argued that this is unacceptable in a country that has declared it recognizes the rule of law and has undertaken to abide by these principles in its activities.

According to the head of the Presidential Secretariat, Oleh Rybachuk, President Yushchenko is indignant over the lack of transparency in the court's hearing of the Gongadze case. While in no way infringing on the judicial authority's independence, the president keeps requesting that the court's sessions be maximally open, Mr. Rybachuk said at a news briefing on February 10.

All of us understand all too well that this is not an ordinary case, Mr. Rybachuk further commented. It is every citizen's right to be informed about the proceedings, he added.

On February 8 the court had decided to postpone its hearings until February 16 because one of the defendants, Mr. Popovych, had not been feeling well. Mr. Rybachuk expressed hope that the president's call would be heard and that on February 16, the day court hearings were to resume, journalists would be admitted into the courtroom.

On February 17 the court partially met a plea by the lawyer of Lesia Gongadze, the slain journalist's mother, to restore the hearing's openness. According to Judge Iryna Grigorieva, who presided over the session, journalists and public representatives may be admitted to the court's further sessions, with the exception of those that will deal with documents containing state secret information.

Commenting on the court's decision, Mrs. Gongadze's lawyer, Andriy Fedur, expressed his astonishment over why the issue of secret information had been raised precisely at this moment. He insisted that the issue should have been clarified before the case was brought to court. He expressed his opinion that everything is being done to prolong the case and discredit President Yushchenko, who has been quite outspoken in pressing for the trial to be transparent to the public.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 5, 2006, No. 10, Vol. LXXIV

| Home Page |