“For three years on end, the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) has been refusing even to register the crime statement,” Oleksii Podolsky, the aggrieved party in the Gongadze case, writes in Facebook. “It is about blackmailing Pukach and endangering the life of his children. They blackmailed and threatened him for the only purpose: he must name Marchuk and Moroz, not Kuchma and Lytvyn, as those who ordered the murder of Gongadze. Pukach also names Judge Melnyk, Valentyna Telychenko, some SBU generals, and a host of the retired and still active PGO officials as blackmailers. Five prosecutor generals – Pshonka, Makhnitskyi, Yarema, Shokin, and Lutsenko – were rejecting the matter by turns. But this time it was impossible to turn it down because the High Court of Ukraine had obliged Lutsenko to register the crime statement. I was at the Kyiv Prosecution Office the other day, where I gave an investigator a detailed testimony on 22 pages with 29 documentary supplements…”
It is quite an essential turn in this well-known and long-lasting case. What caused it? We asked Oleksii Podolsky’s lawyer Tetiana KOSTINA to say more in detail about this. She joined the process in October 2016. Although it is a complicated and high-profile case, Tetiana managed to study it very well. Moreover, she took part in several sessions of the High Specialized Court about this case. To quote Podolsky, “the latest rulings of the High Specialized Court in favor of our team are her achievement. She is a professional lawyer, has a long experience of work, and, what is more, she has a combative spirit, which is very important in our field.” Kostina herself explains her decision to plead our case as follows: “For me as a lawyer and a citizen, this case is a matter of principle, not to mention that it is important to the country as a whole, for it is a key to resolving many problems in our society.”
“THERE IS STILL A HOPE THAT THE KYIV PROSECUTION OFFICE WILL CHECK THE EVIDENCE WE OFFERED AND INTERROGATE THE IMPLICATED PEOPLE”
Tetiana, please tell us about the meeting at the Kyiv prosecution office and the prospects of this case.
“By the consent and sometimes even with the assistance of Kyiv Appeal Court judges, the Prosecutor General’s Office has been ignoring for several years the numerous complaints of Oleksii Pukach, who is undoubtedly guilty of killing Georgy Gongadze and using harsh violence against Oleksii Podolsky, about blackmailing, threatening, and exerting other unlawful influence on him. He argues he was pressured into changing the testimony he had given during the investigation and the trial about the individuals whose orders he executed, that is, the testimony about the organizers of cruel crimes, about the highest officials of that time, including Leonid Kuchma and Volodymyr Lytvyn. Pukach claims he was blackmailed and threatened during the in-camera trial at the Pecherskyi Court. Among the blackmailers are the former judge Andrii Melnyk, who presided over the trial of Pukach at Kyiv’s Pecherskyi Court as a court of original jurisdiction; Valentyna Telychenko, the former representative of Myroslava Gongadze at the trial; public prosecutors, and other individuals.
“The Court of Appeal proceedings sometimes led to open disputes with judges – as soon as Pukach began to speak about the crime against him, they immediately interrupted and tried to hush him. And only thanks to the strenuous and unsparing efforts of Podolsky and his representative at the trial, Oleksandr Yeliashkevych, a panel of High Specialized Court judges handed down the only possible and lawful ruling as long ago as October 2016 – to urge the PGO to enter the crime information into the Consolidated Register of Pretrial Investigations (CRPI).
“But, in spite of this, the Prosecutor General’s Office deliberately continued to ignore this ruling. For this reason, the panel of Higher Specialized Court’s judges ruled again on May 31, 2017, to oblige the PGO to enter the statement into the CRPI. And the Prosecutor General’s Office reacted at last, albeit very strangely. Instead of immediately fulfilling the court’s decision – to enter the case into the CRPI and begin an investigation, – it forwarded this case to the Kyiv City Prosecution Office, i.e., to a lower, subordinate, branch.
“Indeed, Podolsky recently testified about this case at the Kyiv Prosecution Office in my presence. We have also submitted about 30 documents that constitute evidence in this case. Podolsky said, in particular, that it was necessary to interrogate a large number of people who know the details of this case and were involved in pressuring, threatening, and blackmailing Pukach. Among these people are, as it was said above, Andrii Melnyk, Valentyna Telychenko, PGO official Andrii Tkachuk, and others.
“Besides, Podolsky demands that MP Ihor Mosiichuk and former Prime Minister Arsenii Yatseniuk be questioned as witnesses. Incidentally, Mosiichuk has already announced publicly that he is prepared to testify. As is known, this MP has been at a pretrial jail with Pukach before, and he alleged that the latter had once been taken to court, although the court held no sessions about this case in those days. And, according to Mosiichuk, after Pukach had said at the Pecherskyi Court that Kuchma and Lytvyn must stay together with him in the dock, the attitude to him in jail became much worse. Earlier, when Yatseniuk was still in opposition, he also said publicly that Pukach was taken to Mezhyhiria to see the then President Viktor Yanukovych.
“We are now expecting the Kyiv Prosecution Office to take the necessary procedural actions because we have really submitted a lot of materials that require the interrogation of witnesses and those whom Pukach accused of a crime against himself. We hope we won’t have to publicize the names of those who are trying to flout High Specialized Court rulings.”
What does the fact that the PGO has “dumped” this case on the Kyiv Prosecution Office mean?
“This really raises doubts about an effective investigation, with due account of the repercussions of the case as well as the requirements of the court’s ruling. The High Specializes Court obliged no other than the Prosecutor General’s Office to enter the information into the CRPI and launch an investigation. But, also taking into account that we have submitted a great deal of evidence, there still remains a hope that the Kyiv Prosecution Office will check these materials and interrogate the people involved.”
THE RENAISSANCE FOUNDATION REFUSED TO FURNISH INFORMATION ABOUT FUNDING THE JOINT PROJECTS IN WHICH THE KUCHMA-PINCHUK FAMILY PARTICIPATED
You said at a High Specialized Court session that you had sent an inquiry to the International Renaissance Foundation. What was this inquiry about and what response did you get?
“I drew up and sent the inquiry to the Foundation two weeks before the latest appeal court session, i.e., before May 31. At that moment, the question of removing Valentyna Telychenko from the trial had not yet been solved. My inquiry comprised concrete questions which the Foundation should have answered because it had this information. There were, particularly, questions about the Foundation’s funding of the joint projects in which the Kuchma-Pinchuk family participated, funding of Telychenko in connection with the Gongadze case, and funding of some law-enforcement officers, MPs, journalists, and governmental officials also in connection with the Gongadze-Podolsky case.
“But the Foundation refused to answer our questions and furnish this information on the grounds of what it called confidentiality. But we did not intend to reveal the names of the MPs or law-enforcement officers who received funds – we only requested to tell us what amounts were allocated to fund certain official in this very case. Of course, the refusal to give us information came as a surprise, for the International Renaissance Foundation itself propagates an open society. As we can see, they forgot their principal slogan as soon as it came to the Gongadze-Podolsky case. Yet we have learned from other sources (answers to our queries) that the billionaire George Soros’s foundation channeled considerable funds to finance some people involved in the Gongadze-Podolsky case. And we are not going to stop. We will go on gathering this information.”
“FAILURE TO GRANT PODOLSKY THE STATUS OF AN AGGRIEVED PARTY IN THE ‘CRIME ORGANIZERS CASE’ IS A BREACH OF UKRAINIAN LAWS AND ALL THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITMENTS”
Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko said a few months ago that it was planned to complete the Gongadze-Podolsky case (as far as crime organizers are concerned) before the end of his term in office. But he said nothing about Podolsky’s procedural status in this case. Has he already been recognized as an aggrieved party?
“As of today, Podolsky’s status in the ‘crime organizers case’ remains unchanged. In this case (about those who ordered the crimes committed against him and Gongadze), he has, as before, no procedural status of an aggrieved party. Moreover, the PGO’s answer to my legal inquiry about this matter is similar to that of the Renaissance Foundation. In other words, they refuse to answer in essence. For example, we also asked the PGO about the activities of the Reforms Public Council at the Prosecutor General’s Office with Valentyna Telychenko at the head. But they do not furnish us with this information either, although the activity of a Reforms Public Council at a governmental body is supposed to be open to society. The refusal to answer our inquiry can only mean that this public council fails to perform the declared functions, i.e., does not exist, or serves as a cover for the activities the PGO does not want to disclose in public.
“We view this as not only deliberate unwillingness to grant Podolsky the status of an aggrieve party, but also as unwillingness to solve the question of Telychenko whom an appeal court has at last removed, justifiably and legitimately, from the Gongadze-Podolsky case trial. Failure to grant Podolsky the status of an aggrieved party in the ‘crime organizers case’ is a breach of the current Ukrainian laws and all the international commitments Ukraine has taken, not to mention the norms of morality. It is a crime and super-cynicism that Podolsky has still no status of an aggrieved party 17 years after he was beaten up, while, at the same time, we are denied information about Telychenko who has no right at all to be involved in this case.
“I would also like to say to the PGO officials who answer my inquiries, although I turn to the Prosecutor General personally, that, if they don’t know, Yurii Lutsenko is a person who has carved out a political career on this high-profile case. Do you remember the sensational press conference of Oleksandr Moroz in November 2000, when he disclosed the so-called Melnychenko tapes? Who was then pushing the tape-recorder’s button? It is Lutsenko who launched ‘Kuchmagate’ with his own hand. And who was one of the leaders of the ‘Ukraine without Kuchma’ campaign? The same Lutsenko. Who said repeatedly, particularly when he was Minister of the Interior, that this case was a matter of honor for him? Yurii Lutsenko. He is this country’s Prosecutor General today. But I can say as a lawyer that I am just shocked that, in the case of those who ordered the murder of Gongadze and the torture of Podolsky, the latter has not yet been recognized as an aggrieved party. The impression is that Podolsky as an aggrieved party is just standing in the way of law-enforcement bodies.”
And why is the crime organizers case being investigated separately from the rest of the Gongadze-Podolsky case?
“In the very beginning, proceedings were instituted about the missing Georgy Gongadze. Then, when his body was found, it was the case of a premeditated murder. Later, when the perpetrators were found, it was a case against concrete individuals. Soon after, the Pukach case was separated from the overall case and forwarded to a trial court. Likewise, they singled out a separate case about those who ordered the crime. In purely formal terms, this division is not a violation, but it can in fact be used as a way to ensure the crime organizers’ impunity. Still, nothing has been hindering the investigation of crime organizers for many years and nothing hinders granting Podolsky the status of an aggrieved party. But this is not being done deliberately. The conclusions are obvious…”
“WHY WAS PUKACH’S BILL OF INDICTMENT CLASSIFIED AS SECRET? MOST LIKELY, TO LET THE ORGANIZERS GO UNPUNISHED”
Podolsky said at the latest court session that the trial minutes do not include Pukach’s famous words about Kuchma and Lytvyn. As is known, after the sentence was read out at the court of original jurisdiction, Judge Andrii Melnyk asked the defendant if he agreed to the decision, to which he said: “I will agree when Kuchma and Lytvyn are with me in this cage.” The panel of High Specialized Court judges ruled to declassify the Pecherskyi Court audio recordings. How is this process going and when will it finish?
“Indeed, the world-famous words of Pukach are missing from the trial minutes. The panel of judges with Melnyk at the head decided that there would be none of these words in the minutes. We think this unprecedented decision was the last straw for the appeal judges who ruled to declassify all the Pukach case minutes. We understand, of course, that this will prolong the trial, but it is also evident to everybody that what happened at the trial court cannot be called trial. Declassification and publicity are a must here.
“When will this trial finish? No idea so far. We have calculated that the total duration of Pecherskyi Court sessions is 165 hours. Declassification has begun, with specialists from various governmental institutions being involved in this work. One must listen to all these records and compare them with the minutes and, what is more, check whether there were really any secrets because of which Judge Melnyk decided single-handedly to classify the minutes as secret. I have been personally reading the materials of this case since last year and have come across no secrets so far. Our side had a question from the very beginning: why and on what grounds was the bill of indictment classified as secret? Most likely, the reason was to deny society the truth and let the organizers go unpunished. The more I read the materials of this case, the more I am convinced of this.
“It is positive that declassification of the audio recordings has begun, and, in all probability, the painstaking work will take a few more months. Following this, we will be checking, studying, and comparing the case materials with the minutes of court sessions, including Pukach’s words about Kuchma and Lytvyn.”
“HAD GEORGY GONGADZE NOT BEEN KILLED, HE WOULD HAVE BECOME THE SPOKESMAN OF PETRO POROSHENKO, AN MP AT THE TIME, WITHIN A FEW DAYS”
What do you think are the prospects of the appeals of Podolsky and his representatives Viktor Shyshkin and Oleksandr Yeliashkevych? Will there be an open trial in this high-profile case?
“We need a fair and public trial that will not violate the rights of the parties. For example, it might at least summon to the court those whom Podolsky has long been calling organizers of the crimes against himself and Gongadze. After acquainting with a part of case materials, I know some facts that can influence the investigation and, in particular, prompt an appeal court to respond to the claims of Podolsky and his representatives because there are more than enough legal grounds for this. I highly appreciate this likelihood. I think President Petro Poroshenko should also be interested in it. Incidentally, the case materials show that had Gongadze not been killed, he would become the spokesman of Petro Poroshenko, an MP at the time, within a few days. In other words, if Georgy had not been murdered, he could occupy a decent place in today’s political life of Ukraine and it is not ruled out that he would become the Ukrainian president’s spokesman. Therefore, this case should really be a point of honor for the current president, for he has repeatedly said this and even knelt down in front of the commemorative plaque in honor of the murdered journalist.”
“THE GONGADZE-PODOLSKY CASE MUST BE COMPLETED AT LAST FOR THE SAKE OF UKRAINE’S PURIFICATION”
What is this high-profile case for you personally? You have hardly had this kind of cases in your practice before. Has it changed your views on Ukraine’s contemporary history?
“Undoubtedly, I had heard about this case before. But it was not until I joined Oleksii Podolsky’s team and began to study the case materials that it became clear and obvious to me how these heinous crimes were really committed. The more I read this case, the more I reappraise and reconsider. I have really come to know much more about our contemporary history. For me, it is an objective truth, and I would like to put this objective truth, of which Podolsky and Yeliashkevych have been speaking for years, across to the public. Unless this case is resolved, we cannot speak about reforming the law-enforcement or the judicial system or about a rule-of-law state altogether. And I fully agree here with the main idea of Den’s book “The Trap,” or A Case without a Statute of Limitations: we must put a juridical end to this crime organizers case – otherwise, it will be haunting this country endlessly, and we will never resolve our current problems. The Gongadze-Podolsky case is a most significant and high-profile phenomenon. It must be completed at last for the sake of Ukraine’s purification.”
