There is no information on Heorhy Gongadze’s whereabouts, the top Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVS) and Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) officials at a press conference announced last Tuesday. And that all despite the fact that a broad-scale search operation with an unprecedented number involved is underway. According to the MVS administration deputy head in Kyiv Yuri Cherkasov, some 55,000 buildings, cellars, boiler-houses, dachas, and garages have been inspected, 43,000 leaflets have been posted with a request to assist the search operation, 921 crimes have been investigated, and the cooperation of the Interpol and Russia’s internal affairs and security services has been enlisted. Approximately twenty phone calls have been received from journalists and psychics claiming to know Heorhy’s whereabouts. All of them were checked and proved false.
As previously, law enforcement considers the main version of Gongadze’s disappearance to be abduction as a result of his professional work. However, so far there is no concrete evidence. MVS does not reject any other version according to which Heorhy might have left Ukraine of his own accord. Mykola Dzhyha connects it with the fact that in 1993 Gongadze disappeared from Ukraine to participate in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict and was even wounded (the MVS deputy minister showed a copy of Gongadze’s clinical chart and stated that participation in that sort of conflicts by Ukrainian citizens is restricted).
Mr. Dzhyha also revealed that the journalist was allegedly spotted on September 17 in the vicinity of Lev Tolstoi Square. He was accompanied by a person who is also now being sought, but the search has so far been fruitless according to the MVS deputy minister.
