Alexander Gorobets: Legal proceedings cannot be instituted against Ukrainian president on accusation of assassination of journalist Gongadze

Today, the Pechera district court in Kiev declined the appeal of journalist Gongadze’s mother against the refusal of the General Office of the Public Prosecutor to institute criminal proceedings against President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma and other top officials. The mother accuses the president, head of the presidential administration Vladimir Litvin, and Ex-minister for internal affairs Yury Kravchenko of the assassination of her son. The woman demands an investigation of the crime. But the General Office of the Public Prosecutor decreed that legal proceedings against the top officials could not be instituted for the lack of a corpus delicti.

In September 2001, Lesya Gongadze appealed to the Office of the Public Prosecutor for the institution of legal proceedings. The appeal was based upon the fact that Gongadze kidnapping had been mentioned in the notes of Nikolay Melnichenko, the State Security Ex-major. The instruction was sent by President Kuchma to Internal Minister Yury Kravchenko.

Only representatives of the Office of the Public Prosecutor came to the hearing, and the journalist's will soon receive the court decision.

Alexander Gorobets PRAVDA.Ru Kiev Ukraine

Translated by Maria Gousseva

In the photo: Lesya Gongadze, journalist's mother

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/01/25/36021.html