Georgiy R. Gongadze
Encyclopedia
Georgiy Ruslanovich Gongadze was a Ukrainian
journalist of Georgian
origin who was kidnapped and murdered in 2000.
The circumstances of his death became a national scandal and a focus for protests against the government of the then President, Leonid Kuchma
. During the Cassette Scandal
, audiotapes were released on which Kuchma, Volodymyr Lytvyn
and other top-level administration officials are allegedly heard discussing the need to silence Gongadze for his online news reports about high-level corruption. Former Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko
died of two gunshots to the head on 4 March 2005, just hours before he was to begin providing testimony as a witness in the case. Kravchenko was the superior
of the four policeman who were charged with Gongadze's murder soon after Kravchenko's death. The official ruling of suicide was doubted by media reports.
Three former officials of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's foreign surveillance department and criminal intelligence unit (Valeriy Kostenko, Mykola Protasov and Oleksandr Popovych) accused of his murder were arrested in March 2005 and a fourth one (Oleksiy Pukach, the former chief of the unit) in July 2009. A court in Ukraine sentenced Protasov to a sentence of 13 years and Kostenko and Popovych to 12-year terms March 2008 (the trial had begun January 2006) for the murder. Gongadze's family believe the trial had failed to bring the masterminds behind the killing to justice. No one has yet been charged with giving the order for Gongadze's murder.
Gongadze's widow Myroslava Gongadze
and their two children received political asylum in the United States and have lived there since 2001.
Gongadze was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine
by President
Viktor Yushchenko
on 23 August 2005.
, at the time the capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union
, Gongadze was the son of a Georgian politician father and a Ukrainian nurse mother. He was educated at the Ivan Franko National University
of Lviv
in western Ukraine. His mother Lesya was born there and lives in Lviv now. He became a successful journalist, first in Georgia (where he reported on the conflict in Abkhazia
) and then in Ukraine
. He worked for the Kiev
-based radio station Kontynent, on which he had his own show called First round with Heorhiy Gongadze. His strongly independent line soon attracted hostility from the increasingly authoritarian government of Leonid Kuchma; during the October 1999 presidential election
, his commentaries prompted a call from Kuchma's headquarters to say "that he had been blacklisted to be dealt with after the election." Visiting New York in January 2000 with other Ukrainian journalists, he warned of "the strangulation of the freedom of speech and information in our state."
In April 2000, Gongadze co-founded a news website, Ukrayinska Pravda
(Ukrainian Truth), as a means of sidestepping the government's increasing influence over the mainstream media. He observed that following the muzzling of a prominent pro-opposition newspaper after the election, "today there is practically no objective information available about Ukraine". The website specialized in political news and commentary, focusing particularly on President Kuchma, the country's wealthy "oligarchs" and the official media.
In June 2000, Gongadze wrote an open letter to Ukraine's chief prosecutor about harassment from the SBU, the Ukrainian secret police, directed towards himself and his Ukrayinska Pravda colleagues and apparently related to an investigation into a murder case in the southern port of Odessa
. He complained that had been forced into hiding because of harassment from the secret police, that he said he and his family were being followed, that his staff were being harassed, and that the SBU were spreading a rumor that he was wanted on a murder charge.
Two months later, on 3 November 2000, a body was found in a forest in the Taraschanskyi Raion (district
) of the Kiev Oblast
(province
), some 70 km (43.5 mi) outside Kiev. The corpse had been decapitated and doused in dioxine, apparently to make identification more difficult; forensic investigations found that the dioxine bath and decapitation had occurred while the victim was still alive. The Russian-edited, Russian-language Ukrainian newspaper Sevodnya ("Today") reported that Gongadze had been abducted by policemen and accidentally shot in the head while seated in a vehicle, necessitating his decapitation (to avoid the bullet being recovered and matched to a police weapon). His body had been doused in petrol which had failed to burn properly, and had then been dumped. A group of journalists first identified it as being that of Gongadze, a finding confirmed a few weeks later by his wife Myroslava. In a bizarre twist, the corpse was then confiscated by the police
and resurfaced in a morgue in Kiev. The authorities did not officially acknowledge that the body was that of Gongadze until the following February and did not definitively confirm it until as late as March 2003. The body was eventually identified and was to be returned to Gongadze's family to be buried two years after his disappearance. However, the funeral never took place. As of 23 June 2006 Gongadze's mother refused to accept the remains offered as it was not the body of her son. While visiting Kiev in July 2006, Gongadze's widow Myroslava emphasized that the funeral had now become a solemn family issue and the date of the funeral would soon be appointed.
On 28 November 2000, opposition politician Oleksandr Moroz
publicized secret tape recordings which he claimed implicated President Kuchma in Gongadze's murder. The recordings were said to be of discussions between Kuchma, presidential chief of staff Volodymyr Lytvyn
, and Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko
, and were claimed to have been provided by an unnamed SBU officer (later named as Major Mykola Mel'nychenko, Kuchma's bodyguard). The conversations included comments expressing annoyance at Gongadze's writings as well as discussions of ways to shut him up, such as deporting him and arranging from him to be kidnapped and taken to Chechnya
. Killing him was, however, not mentioned and doubt was cast on the tapes' authenticity, as the quality of the recordings was poor. Moroz told the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada
(parliament) that "the professionally organized disappearance, a slow-moving investigation, disregard for the most essential elements of investigation and incoherent comments by police officials suggest that the case was put together."
In September 2001, the American detective agency
Kroll Inc.
, contracted by Labor Ukraine, had carried out a six-month investigation and established that then president Leonid Kuchma had nothing to do with the murder of Gongadze.
The affair became a major political scandal (referred to in Ukraine as the "Cassette Scandal
" or "Tapegate"). Kuchma strongly denied Moroz's accusations and threatened a libel suit, blaming the tapes on foreign agents. He later acknowledged that his voice was indeed one of those on the tapes, but claimed that they had been selectively edited to distort his meaning.
expressing dissatisfaction at the official investigation, rumors of Ukrainian suspension from the Council of Europe
, and censure from the OSCE
, which described Gongadze's death as a case of "censorship by killing" and castigated the "extremely unprofessional" investigation. Mass demonstrations erupted in Kiev in February 2001, calling for the resignation of Kuchma and the dismissal of other key officials. He did sack the head of the SBU, Leonid Derkach, and the chief of the presidential bodyguard, Volodymyr Shepel, but refused to step down. The government invited the US FBI to investigate, though it does not appear that this offer was ever taken up. The protests were eventually forcibly broken up by the police.
In May 2001, interior minister Yuri Smirnov announced that the murder had been solved—it was attributed to a random act of violence committed by two "hooligans" with links to a gangster called "Cyclops". Both of the killers were said to now be dead. The claim was dismissed by the opposition and by the government's own prosecutor-general, whose office issued a statement denying Smirnov's claims.
Mass protests again broke out in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities in September 2002 to mark the second anniversary of Gongadze's death. The demonstrators again called for Kuchma's resignation but the protests again failed to achieve their goal, with police breaking up the protesters' camp.
The prosecutor of the Tarascha district, where Gongadze's body was found, was convicted in May 2003 for abuse of office and falsification of evidence. Serhiy Obozov was found guilty of forging documents and negligence in the investigation and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. However, he was immediately released due to a provision of Ukraine's amnesty laws.
In June 2004, the government claimed that a convicted gangster identified only as "K" had confessed to Gongadze's murder, although there was no independent confirmation of the claim. The ongoing investigation received a setback when a key witness died of spinal injuries apparently sustained while in police custody.
Gongadze's death became a major issue in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, in which the opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko
pledged to solve the case if he became president. Yushchenko did become president following the subsequent Orange Revolution
and immediately launched a new investigation, replacing the country's prosecutor-general.
The Council of Europe
's Parliamentary Assembly
adopted on 27 January 2009 Resolution 1645 on the investigation of crimes allegedly committed by high officials during the Kuchma rule in Ukraine – the Gongadze case as an emblematic example. This Resolution calls on the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office to use all possible avenues of investigation to identify those who instigated and organised the murder of Giorgiy Gongadze.
announced the following day that the case had been solved, telling Ukrainian television that Gongadze had been strangled by employees of the Interior Ministry. Two of the alleged killers were said to be senior policemen working for the Interior Ministry's criminal investigations directorate (CID). Former Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko, one of those recorded with Leonid Kuchma in the Cassette Scandal
, was also said to be under investigation. The two police colonels accused of the killing have been detained and a third senior policeman, identified as CID commander Oleksiy Pukach, was being sought on an international arrest warrant.
On 4 March, Yuri Kravchenko was found dead in a dacha
in the elite residential area of Koncha-Zaspa, outside Kiev. He had died from apparently self-inflicted gunshot wounds, though some speculated that he might have been assassinated to prevent him from testifying as a witness. Hryhory Omelchenko, who chaired the parliamentary committee that investigated the Gongadze case, told the New York Times that Kravchenko had ordered Pukach to abduct Gongadze on President Kuchma's orders. Kuchma himself has denied this allegation but has since been interviewed by investigators. Kravchenko left an alleged suicide note: “My dear ones, I am not guilty of anything. Forgive me, for I became a victim of the political intrigues of President Kuchma and his entourage. I am leaving you with a clear conscious, farewell.”
In April/May 2005, Piskun released more details of the ongoing investigation. He told the press that after Gongadze was murdered, a second group disinterred him and re-buried him where he was eventually found, in the constituency of Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz. According to Piskun, the aim was to undermine the government (led by Viktor Yushchenko when he was still Prime Minister). The second group was part of or allied with the United Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (SDPUo), a pro-oligarch grouping which had been hit hard by Yushchenko's crackdown on corruption and therefore wanted to see his government toppled. According to the journal Ukrayina moloda (14 April 2005), the SDPUo moved Gongadze in order to discredit President Leonid Kuchma and force early elections, which could have led to party leader Medvedchuk succeeding Kuchma.
The trial against the three former policemen charged with the killing of Georgiy Gongadze started on 9 January 2006. The other main suspect, ex-police officer, Oleksiy Pukach was believed to have fled abroad and therefore charged but not on trial. No-one had been charged
for ordering the murder. On the day the trial started Gongadze's widow
Myroslava Gongadze
commented on the fact that no-one has been charged for the killing: "They are known and they should be punished just the same as those who will be sitting in the dock today".
In mid March 2008, the three former police officers were sentenced to prison for the actual act of murder of Gongadze. Mykola Protasov was given a sentence of 13 years, while Valeriy Kostenko and Oleksandr Popovych were each handed 12-year terms. But so far the investigations have failed to show who ordered the murder.
. The former chief of the main criminal investigation department at the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's foreign surveillance unit had lived in the house of Lidia Zagorulko who had told her neighbours that Pukach was the brother of her dead husband and that he was a former sea captain. Pukach had lived there with his real second name and original documents. At first it was reported and that he had implicated senior political figures in the murder and was ready to show the place where the journalist's head was hidden, but this was denied two days after his arrest by his lawyer. According to the lawyer "for the time being" Pukach was not intended to provide this information to the investigators. Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko
refused to comment whether Pukach named those who ordered the murder or not, saying a "secret investigation" was underway.
On 28 July 2009 Ukrainian media reported that the remains of Gongadze's skull were found near Bila Tserkva
, in a location specified by Pukach. According to the Prosecutor's General Office they did find fragments of a skull there that may belong to Gongadze.
A request by Gongadze's widow, Myroslava Gongadze
, to replace deputy prosecutor general Mykola Holomsha and investigator Oleksandr Kharchenko, because of their insufficient professionalism and because they were unable to withstand political pressure and speculation surrounding the case, was rejected on 30 July 2009. A request by Gongadze to replace Pukach's lawyer was also denied on 28 October 2009.
On 20 November 2009 Gongadze's mother Lesya gave consent to an examination of fragments of the skull found end-July 2009 under the condition she could take fragments of the skull for private DNA examination she plans to conduct at a private foreign laboratory after the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election
. In September 2010 she stated that in her opinion, the fragments of the skull found in July 2009 had nothing to do with her son.
On 3 December 2009 Pukach's detention was extended by two months.
On 6 December 2009 Mykola Melnychenko
accused Volodymyr Lytvyn
of ordering the murder of Gongadze in 2000. Melnychenko offered no proof to back up the claim. A spokesperson for Lytvyn dismissed the claims as part of the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election
campaign.
The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine plans to complete its investigation into the case of Oleksiy Pukach by the end of the summer of 2010.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko
stated on 17 June 2010 that skull fragments found near Bila Tserkva in July 2009 were those of Gongadze.
On 14 September 2010, Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General issued a statement stating that prosecutors had concluded that former Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko had ordered Pukach to carry out the murder, and stating that Pukach had confessed to the murder. According to Gongadze's widow, Myroslava Gongadze, "Kravchenko had had no grounds for such actions", she believes that several people ordered the killing of the journalist. According to Georgiy Gongadze's mother, Lesya, the statement was an attempt attempt by the Prosecutor General's Office to excuse itself for its inactivity. On 16 September 2010 Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament Volodymyr Lytvyn
stated that the investigation into the murder of Gongadze confirmed his innocence in this crime.
Pukach's not open for public trial, on allegations he strangled and beheaded Gongadze, began on 7 July 2011.
On 30 August 2011, Pukach admitted that Leonid Kuchma was the one who has ordered the murder.
On 24 March 2011 Ukrainian prosecutors charged Kuchma with involvement in the murder. The decision prompted mixed reaction among the public. Former Prime-Minister and the leader of the main opposition party Yulia Tymoshenko
argued that Kuchma's arrest was no more than a PR stunt designed to distract people from their economic woes and prop up President Viktor Yanukovych
's sagging popularity. Another theory was that Yanukovych was driven by the desire for revenge on Kuchma, who often humiliated Yanukovych and refused to use force to stop the Orange Revolution
in 2004. Political analysts suggested that Yanukovych's "display of justice" could also be aimed at winning credit from the West, which has criticised him for usurping power and squeezing out democracy.
President
Viktor Yushchenko
awarded Gongadze the title Hero of Ukraine
on 23 August 2005.
In June 2005 Kiev
's Industrialnaya Street was renamed Georgy Gongadze Street. August 2008 a monument to journalist Gongadze and all journalists killed for their professional activities was opened in Kiev in a park in Chervonoarmiyska street, but Gongadze's mother, Lesya Gongadze, was against erecting a monument until the investigation is completed. She repeated her wish "to remove the monument to Gongadze" after a meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych
on 22 June 2010, she also added her discontent with "political forces" holding "PR campaigns" regarding the Gongadze murder case.
A literary token of respect for the work and courage of Gongadze is to be found in the novel for young adults, "Fair Game: The Steps of Odessa" (Spire Publishing, 2008, ISBN 1-897312-72-5) by James Watson. The book is dedicated to Giya Gongadze, but the theme, of a persecuted journalist and the impact of his revelations about government corruption on his football-playing daughter, Natasha, and his son Lonya, has strong similarities to Gongadze's own fate.
In Kiev
and Lviv
ceremonies marking the disappearance of Gongadze where held on 16 September 2010 (ten years after his disappearance).
Leonid Kuchma
opposition papers were closed and several journalists died in mysterious circumstances.
and sometimes spelling
of Gongadze's name may differ following the phonetics
of different languages. The original Georgian
name, pronounced Georgi Gongadze in Georgian
, became Георгій Гонгадзе (Heorhiy Honhadze) and sometimes Георгій or Ґія Ґонґадзе (Heorhiy or Giia Gongadze) in Ukrainian
, and Георгий Гонгадзе (Georgiy Gongadze) in Russian. Ukrainian officials often refer to him as Heorhiy Honhadze, as per the pronunciation of the letter Г (H) in Ukrainian, but not of the letter Ґ (G). This pronunciation is also used in the common dialect of southern Russia. After a recent linguistic reform, Ukrainians have recovered the letter Ґ (Ghe) for G, a letter which had been banned during the Soviet Union
(The letter Ґ (Ghe) was re-introduced after the indpenedence of Ukraine. It had been banned by the Soviet linguistic reform of 1933 as being "non-Ukrainian" (read "too different from Russian for a little brother") and "improper"). Hence the more correct spelling of Gongadze's last name in Ukrainian (Ґонґадзе), according to the Georgian pronunciation. Some sources also refer to him as Georgy Gongadze.
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
journalist of Georgian
Georgians
The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....
origin who was kidnapped and murdered in 2000.
The circumstances of his death became a national scandal and a focus for protests against the government of the then President, Leonid Kuchma
Leonid Kuchma
Leonid Danylovych Kuchma was the second President of independent Ukraine from 19 July 1994, to 23 January 2005. Kuchma took office after winning the 1994 presidential election against his rival, incumbent Leonid Kravchuk...
. During the Cassette Scandal
Cassette Scandal
The Cassette Scandal , also known as "Tapegate" and "Kuchmagate", erupting in 2000, was one of the main political events in Ukraine's post-independence history...
, audiotapes were released on which Kuchma, Volodymyr Lytvyn
Volodymyr Lytvyn
Volodymyr Mykhailovych Lytvyn is a Ukrainian politician and the current Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament. Having previously served in that position from 2002 until 2006, he was re-elected in December 2008 after his party agreed to join the former coalition of Yulia...
and other top-level administration officials are allegedly heard discussing the need to silence Gongadze for his online news reports about high-level corruption. Former Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko
Yuriy Kravchenko
Yuriy Fedorovych Kravchenko , was a Ukrainian police officer and statesman. In 2000, while a Minister of Internal Affairs, Kravchenko became directly involved in the murder case of Georgiy Gongadze and subsequent Cassette Scandal...
died of two gunshots to the head on 4 March 2005, just hours before he was to begin providing testimony as a witness in the case. Kravchenko was the superior
Superior (hierarchy)
In a hierarchy or tree structure of any kind, a superior is an individual or position at a higher level in the hierarchy than another , and thus closer to the apex. It is often used in business terminology to refer to people who are supervisors and in the military to people who are higher in the...
of the four policeman who were charged with Gongadze's murder soon after Kravchenko's death. The official ruling of suicide was doubted by media reports.
Three former officials of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's foreign surveillance department and criminal intelligence unit (Valeriy Kostenko, Mykola Protasov and Oleksandr Popovych) accused of his murder were arrested in March 2005 and a fourth one (Oleksiy Pukach, the former chief of the unit) in July 2009. A court in Ukraine sentenced Protasov to a sentence of 13 years and Kostenko and Popovych to 12-year terms March 2008 (the trial had begun January 2006) for the murder. Gongadze's family believe the trial had failed to bring the masterminds behind the killing to justice. No one has yet been charged with giving the order for Gongadze's murder.
Gongadze's widow Myroslava Gongadze
Myroslava Gongadze
Myroslava Gongadze is a Ukrainian journalist and political activist now living in the United States. Her husband, journalist Georgiy Gongadze, was abducted and murdered in 2000...
and their two children received political asylum in the United States and have lived there since 2001.
Gongadze was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine
Hero of Ukraine
Hero of Ukraine is the highest state decoration that can be conferred upon an individual citizen by the Government of Ukraine. The title was created in 1998 by President Leonid Kuchma and as of August 25 2011 the total number of awards is 265. The award is divided into two classes of distinction:...
by President
President of Ukraine
Prior to the formation of the modern Ukrainian presidency, the previous Ukrainian head of state office was officially established in exile by Andriy Livytskyi. At first the de facto leader of nation was the president of the Central Rada at early years of the Ukrainian People's Republic, while the...
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is a former President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution...
on 23 August 2005.
Career
Born in TbilisiTbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
, at the time the capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Gongadze was the son of a Georgian politician father and a Ukrainian nurse mother. He was educated at the Ivan Franko National University
Lviv University
The Lviv University or officially the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv is the oldest continuously operating university in Ukraine...
of Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
in western Ukraine. His mother Lesya was born there and lives in Lviv now. He became a successful journalist, first in Georgia (where he reported on the conflict in Abkhazia
Abkhazia
Abkhazia is a disputed political entity on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus.Abkhazia considers itself an independent state, called the Republic of Abkhazia or Apsny...
) and then in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. He worked for the Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
-based radio station Kontynent, on which he had his own show called First round with Heorhiy Gongadze. His strongly independent line soon attracted hostility from the increasingly authoritarian government of Leonid Kuchma; during the October 1999 presidential election
Ukrainian presidential election, 1999
The Ukrainian presidential election, 1999 was a presidential election held in 1999 in Ukraine.There were 15 candidates originally with two withdrawing prior to election ....
, his commentaries prompted a call from Kuchma's headquarters to say "that he had been blacklisted to be dealt with after the election." Visiting New York in January 2000 with other Ukrainian journalists, he warned of "the strangulation of the freedom of speech and information in our state."
In April 2000, Gongadze co-founded a news website, Ukrayinska Pravda
Ukrayinska Pravda
Ukrayinska Pravda is a popular Ukrainian internet newspaper, founded by Georgiy R. Gongadze in April, 2000...
(Ukrainian Truth), as a means of sidestepping the government's increasing influence over the mainstream media. He observed that following the muzzling of a prominent pro-opposition newspaper after the election, "today there is practically no objective information available about Ukraine". The website specialized in political news and commentary, focusing particularly on President Kuchma, the country's wealthy "oligarchs" and the official media.
In June 2000, Gongadze wrote an open letter to Ukraine's chief prosecutor about harassment from the SBU, the Ukrainian secret police, directed towards himself and his Ukrayinska Pravda colleagues and apparently related to an investigation into a murder case in the southern port of Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
. He complained that had been forced into hiding because of harassment from the secret police, that he said he and his family were being followed, that his staff were being harassed, and that the SBU were spreading a rumor that he was wanted on a murder charge.
Disappearance and investigations
Gongadze disappeared on 16 September 2000, after failing to return home. Foul play was suspected from the outset. The matter immediately attracted widespread public attention and media interest. 80 journalists signed an open letter to President Kuchma urging an investigation and complaining that "during the years of Ukrainian independence, not a single high-profile crime against journalists has been fully resolved." Kuchma responded by ordering an immediate inquiry. This was, however, viewed with some skepticism. Opposition politician Hryhoriy Omelchenko reported that the disappearance had coincided with Gongadze receiving documents on corruption within the president's own entourage. The Ukrainian Parliament set up a parallel inquiry run by a special commission. Neither investigation produced any results.Two months later, on 3 November 2000, a body was found in a forest in the Taraschanskyi Raion (district
Raion
A raion is a type of administrative unit of several post-Soviet countries. The term, which is from French rayon 'honeycomb, department,' describes both a type of a subnational entity and a division of a city, and is commonly translated in English as "district"...
) of the Kiev Oblast
Kiev Oblast
Kyiv Oblast, sometimes written as Kiev Oblast is an oblast in central Ukraine.The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Kyiv , also being the capital of Ukraine...
(province
Oblast
Oblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...
), some 70 km (43.5 mi) outside Kiev. The corpse had been decapitated and doused in dioxine, apparently to make identification more difficult; forensic investigations found that the dioxine bath and decapitation had occurred while the victim was still alive. The Russian-edited, Russian-language Ukrainian newspaper Sevodnya ("Today") reported that Gongadze had been abducted by policemen and accidentally shot in the head while seated in a vehicle, necessitating his decapitation (to avoid the bullet being recovered and matched to a police weapon). His body had been doused in petrol which had failed to burn properly, and had then been dumped. A group of journalists first identified it as being that of Gongadze, a finding confirmed a few weeks later by his wife Myroslava. In a bizarre twist, the corpse was then confiscated by the police
Militsiya
Militsiya or militia is used as an official name of the civilian police in several former communist states, despite its original military connotation...
and resurfaced in a morgue in Kiev. The authorities did not officially acknowledge that the body was that of Gongadze until the following February and did not definitively confirm it until as late as March 2003. The body was eventually identified and was to be returned to Gongadze's family to be buried two years after his disappearance. However, the funeral never took place. As of 23 June 2006 Gongadze's mother refused to accept the remains offered as it was not the body of her son. While visiting Kiev in July 2006, Gongadze's widow Myroslava emphasized that the funeral had now become a solemn family issue and the date of the funeral would soon be appointed.
On 28 November 2000, opposition politician Oleksandr Moroz
Oleksandr Moroz
Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Moroz is a Ukrainian statesman and politician. He was the Speaker of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine twice: July 2006 to September 2007, and previously in 1994 through 1998. Moroz is one of the founders and leader of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, which was an influential...
publicized secret tape recordings which he claimed implicated President Kuchma in Gongadze's murder. The recordings were said to be of discussions between Kuchma, presidential chief of staff Volodymyr Lytvyn
Volodymyr Lytvyn
Volodymyr Mykhailovych Lytvyn is a Ukrainian politician and the current Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament. Having previously served in that position from 2002 until 2006, he was re-elected in December 2008 after his party agreed to join the former coalition of Yulia...
, and Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko
Yuriy Kravchenko
Yuriy Fedorovych Kravchenko , was a Ukrainian police officer and statesman. In 2000, while a Minister of Internal Affairs, Kravchenko became directly involved in the murder case of Georgiy Gongadze and subsequent Cassette Scandal...
, and were claimed to have been provided by an unnamed SBU officer (later named as Major Mykola Mel'nychenko, Kuchma's bodyguard). The conversations included comments expressing annoyance at Gongadze's writings as well as discussions of ways to shut him up, such as deporting him and arranging from him to be kidnapped and taken to Chechnya
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...
. Killing him was, however, not mentioned and doubt was cast on the tapes' authenticity, as the quality of the recordings was poor. Moroz told the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada
Verkhovna Rada
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is Ukraine's parliament. The Verkhovna Rada is a unicameral parliament composed of 450 deputies, which is presided over by a chairman...
(parliament) that "the professionally organized disappearance, a slow-moving investigation, disregard for the most essential elements of investigation and incoherent comments by police officials suggest that the case was put together."
In September 2001, the American detective agency
Private investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
Kroll Inc.
Kroll Inc.
Kroll is a risk consultancy firm based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. and established in 1972.- History:Kroll was founded in 1972 by Jules B. Kroll as a consultant to corporate purchasing departments...
, contracted by Labor Ukraine, had carried out a six-month investigation and established that then president Leonid Kuchma had nothing to do with the murder of Gongadze.
The affair became a major political scandal (referred to in Ukraine as the "Cassette Scandal
Cassette Scandal
The Cassette Scandal , also known as "Tapegate" and "Kuchmagate", erupting in 2000, was one of the main political events in Ukraine's post-independence history...
" or "Tapegate"). Kuchma strongly denied Moroz's accusations and threatened a libel suit, blaming the tapes on foreign agents. He later acknowledged that his voice was indeed one of those on the tapes, but claimed that they had been selectively edited to distort his meaning.
Crises and controversy
The affair became an international crisis for the Ukrainian government during 2001, with the European UnionEuropean Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
expressing dissatisfaction at the official investigation, rumors of Ukrainian suspension from the Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
, and censure from the OSCE
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe is the world's largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, human rights, freedom of the press and fair elections...
, which described Gongadze's death as a case of "censorship by killing" and castigated the "extremely unprofessional" investigation. Mass demonstrations erupted in Kiev in February 2001, calling for the resignation of Kuchma and the dismissal of other key officials. He did sack the head of the SBU, Leonid Derkach, and the chief of the presidential bodyguard, Volodymyr Shepel, but refused to step down. The government invited the US FBI to investigate, though it does not appear that this offer was ever taken up. The protests were eventually forcibly broken up by the police.
In May 2001, interior minister Yuri Smirnov announced that the murder had been solved—it was attributed to a random act of violence committed by two "hooligans" with links to a gangster called "Cyclops". Both of the killers were said to now be dead. The claim was dismissed by the opposition and by the government's own prosecutor-general, whose office issued a statement denying Smirnov's claims.
Mass protests again broke out in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities in September 2002 to mark the second anniversary of Gongadze's death. The demonstrators again called for Kuchma's resignation but the protests again failed to achieve their goal, with police breaking up the protesters' camp.
The prosecutor of the Tarascha district, where Gongadze's body was found, was convicted in May 2003 for abuse of office and falsification of evidence. Serhiy Obozov was found guilty of forging documents and negligence in the investigation and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. However, he was immediately released due to a provision of Ukraine's amnesty laws.
In June 2004, the government claimed that a convicted gangster identified only as "K" had confessed to Gongadze's murder, although there was no independent confirmation of the claim. The ongoing investigation received a setback when a key witness died of spinal injuries apparently sustained while in police custody.
Gongadze's death became a major issue in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, in which the opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is a former President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution...
pledged to solve the case if he became president. Yushchenko did become president following the subsequent Orange Revolution
Orange Revolution
The Orange Revolution was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate aftermath of the run-off vote of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election which was claimed to be marred by massive corruption, voter...
and immediately launched a new investigation, replacing the country's prosecutor-general.
The Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
's Parliamentary Assembly
Parliamentary assembly
A parliamentary assembly can mean one of the following:*National Parliament, a type of state legislative assembly body*Assembly of national parliaments, an inter-parliamentary institution of state national legislatures...
adopted on 27 January 2009 Resolution 1645 on the investigation of crimes allegedly committed by high officials during the Kuchma rule in Ukraine – the Gongadze case as an emblematic example. This Resolution calls on the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office to use all possible avenues of investigation to identify those who instigated and organised the murder of Giorgiy Gongadze.
Arrest and trial of three former policemen and death of Kravchenko
On 1 March 2005, Yushchenko announced that the journalist's suspected killers had been arrested. Prosecutor-General Svyatoslav PiskunSvyatoslav Piskun
Svyatoslav Mykhaylovych Piskun was the 3 times Prosecutor General of Ukraine in 2002-2003, 2005 and 2007 till President Viktor Yuschenko's dismissed Piskun on May 24, 2007. He is an important participant of several scandals, including the cases of Georgiy R...
announced the following day that the case had been solved, telling Ukrainian television that Gongadze had been strangled by employees of the Interior Ministry. Two of the alleged killers were said to be senior policemen working for the Interior Ministry's criminal investigations directorate (CID). Former Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko, one of those recorded with Leonid Kuchma in the Cassette Scandal
Cassette Scandal
The Cassette Scandal , also known as "Tapegate" and "Kuchmagate", erupting in 2000, was one of the main political events in Ukraine's post-independence history...
, was also said to be under investigation. The two police colonels accused of the killing have been detained and a third senior policeman, identified as CID commander Oleksiy Pukach, was being sought on an international arrest warrant.
On 4 March, Yuri Kravchenko was found dead in a dacha
Dacha
Dacha is a Russian word for seasonal or year-round second homes often located in the exurbs of Soviet and post-Soviet cities. Cottages or shacks serving as family's main or only home are not considered dachas, although many purpose-built dachas are recently being converted for year-round residence...
in the elite residential area of Koncha-Zaspa, outside Kiev. He had died from apparently self-inflicted gunshot wounds, though some speculated that he might have been assassinated to prevent him from testifying as a witness. Hryhory Omelchenko, who chaired the parliamentary committee that investigated the Gongadze case, told the New York Times that Kravchenko had ordered Pukach to abduct Gongadze on President Kuchma's orders. Kuchma himself has denied this allegation but has since been interviewed by investigators. Kravchenko left an alleged suicide note: “My dear ones, I am not guilty of anything. Forgive me, for I became a victim of the political intrigues of President Kuchma and his entourage. I am leaving you with a clear conscious, farewell.”
In April/May 2005, Piskun released more details of the ongoing investigation. He told the press that after Gongadze was murdered, a second group disinterred him and re-buried him where he was eventually found, in the constituency of Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz. According to Piskun, the aim was to undermine the government (led by Viktor Yushchenko when he was still Prime Minister). The second group was part of or allied with the United Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (SDPUo), a pro-oligarch grouping which had been hit hard by Yushchenko's crackdown on corruption and therefore wanted to see his government toppled. According to the journal Ukrayina moloda (14 April 2005), the SDPUo moved Gongadze in order to discredit President Leonid Kuchma and force early elections, which could have led to party leader Medvedchuk succeeding Kuchma.
The trial against the three former policemen charged with the killing of Georgiy Gongadze started on 9 January 2006. The other main suspect, ex-police officer, Oleksiy Pukach was believed to have fled abroad and therefore charged but not on trial. No-one had been charged
Indictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
for ordering the murder. On the day the trial started Gongadze's widow
Widow
A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...
Myroslava Gongadze
Myroslava Gongadze
Myroslava Gongadze is a Ukrainian journalist and political activist now living in the United States. Her husband, journalist Georgiy Gongadze, was abducted and murdered in 2000...
commented on the fact that no-one has been charged for the killing: "They are known and they should be punished just the same as those who will be sitting in the dock today".
In mid March 2008, the three former police officers were sentenced to prison for the actual act of murder of Gongadze. Mykola Protasov was given a sentence of 13 years, while Valeriy Kostenko and Oleksandr Popovych were each handed 12-year terms. But so far the investigations have failed to show who ordered the murder.
Arrest of Oleksiy Pukach
On 22 July 2009 Oleksiy Pukach, one of the chief suspects, was arrested in Ukraine's Zhytomyr OblastZhytomyr Oblast
Zhytomyr Oblast is an oblast of northern Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Zhytomyr.-History:The oblast was created as part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on September 22, 1937....
. The former chief of the main criminal investigation department at the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's foreign surveillance unit had lived in the house of Lidia Zagorulko who had told her neighbours that Pukach was the brother of her dead husband and that he was a former sea captain. Pukach had lived there with his real second name and original documents. At first it was reported and that he had implicated senior political figures in the murder and was ready to show the place where the journalist's head was hidden, but this was denied two days after his arrest by his lawyer. According to the lawyer "for the time being" Pukach was not intended to provide this information to the investigators. Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko
Oleksandr Medvedko
Oleksandr Medvedko is a former Prosecutor General of Ukraine Medvedko was installed in a political deal with the Party of Regions.In December 2009 during the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election campaign incumbent Prime Minister of Ukraine and presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko promised to...
refused to comment whether Pukach named those who ordered the murder or not, saying a "secret investigation" was underway.
On 28 July 2009 Ukrainian media reported that the remains of Gongadze's skull were found near Bila Tserkva
Bila Tserkva
Bila Tserkva is a city located on the Ros' River in the Kiev Oblast in central Ukraine, approximately south of the capital, Kiev. Population 203,300 Area 34 km².-Administrative status:...
, in a location specified by Pukach. According to the Prosecutor's General Office they did find fragments of a skull there that may belong to Gongadze.
A request by Gongadze's widow, Myroslava Gongadze
Myroslava Gongadze
Myroslava Gongadze is a Ukrainian journalist and political activist now living in the United States. Her husband, journalist Georgiy Gongadze, was abducted and murdered in 2000...
, to replace deputy prosecutor general Mykola Holomsha and investigator Oleksandr Kharchenko, because of their insufficient professionalism and because they were unable to withstand political pressure and speculation surrounding the case, was rejected on 30 July 2009. A request by Gongadze to replace Pukach's lawyer was also denied on 28 October 2009.
On 20 November 2009 Gongadze's mother Lesya gave consent to an examination of fragments of the skull found end-July 2009 under the condition she could take fragments of the skull for private DNA examination she plans to conduct at a private foreign laboratory after the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election
Ukrainian presidential election, 2010
The Ukrainian presidential election of 2010 is Ukraine's fifth presidential election since declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The first round was held on January 17, 2010...
. In September 2010 she stated that in her opinion, the fragments of the skull found in July 2009 had nothing to do with her son.
On 3 December 2009 Pukach's detention was extended by two months.
On 6 December 2009 Mykola Melnychenko
Mykola Melnychenko
Mykola Melnychenko was a bodyguard of the former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.Between 1998 and 2000 Melnychenko allegedly recorded numerous conversations that took place in the office of the Ukrainian leader before fleeing abroad with the secretly taped recordings...
accused Volodymyr Lytvyn
Volodymyr Lytvyn
Volodymyr Mykhailovych Lytvyn is a Ukrainian politician and the current Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament. Having previously served in that position from 2002 until 2006, he was re-elected in December 2008 after his party agreed to join the former coalition of Yulia...
of ordering the murder of Gongadze in 2000. Melnychenko offered no proof to back up the claim. A spokesperson for Lytvyn dismissed the claims as part of the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election
Ukrainian presidential election, 2010
The Ukrainian presidential election of 2010 is Ukraine's fifth presidential election since declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The first round was held on January 17, 2010...
campaign.
The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine plans to complete its investigation into the case of Oleksiy Pukach by the end of the summer of 2010.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko
Oleksandr Medvedko
Oleksandr Medvedko is a former Prosecutor General of Ukraine Medvedko was installed in a political deal with the Party of Regions.In December 2009 during the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election campaign incumbent Prime Minister of Ukraine and presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko promised to...
stated on 17 June 2010 that skull fragments found near Bila Tserkva in July 2009 were those of Gongadze.
On 14 September 2010, Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General issued a statement stating that prosecutors had concluded that former Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko had ordered Pukach to carry out the murder, and stating that Pukach had confessed to the murder. According to Gongadze's widow, Myroslava Gongadze, "Kravchenko had had no grounds for such actions", she believes that several people ordered the killing of the journalist. According to Georgiy Gongadze's mother, Lesya, the statement was an attempt attempt by the Prosecutor General's Office to excuse itself for its inactivity. On 16 September 2010 Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament Volodymyr Lytvyn
Volodymyr Lytvyn
Volodymyr Mykhailovych Lytvyn is a Ukrainian politician and the current Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament. Having previously served in that position from 2002 until 2006, he was re-elected in December 2008 after his party agreed to join the former coalition of Yulia...
stated that the investigation into the murder of Gongadze confirmed his innocence in this crime.
Pukach's not open for public trial, on allegations he strangled and beheaded Gongadze, began on 7 July 2011.
On 30 August 2011, Pukach admitted that Leonid Kuchma was the one who has ordered the murder.
Charges against Leonid Kuchma
The General Prosecutor of Ukraine's Office canceled its resolution to deny opening of criminal cases against former President Leonid Kuchma and other politicians within the Gongadze-case on 9 October 2010.On 24 March 2011 Ukrainian prosecutors charged Kuchma with involvement in the murder. The decision prompted mixed reaction among the public. Former Prime-Minister and the leader of the main opposition party Yulia Tymoshenko
Yulia Tymoshenko
Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko , née Grigyan , born 27 November 1960, is a Ukrainian politician. She was the Prime Minister of Ukraine from 24 January to 8 September 2005, and again from 18 December 2007 to 4 March 2010. She placed third in Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful...
argued that Kuchma's arrest was no more than a PR stunt designed to distract people from their economic woes and prop up President Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a Ukrainian politician who has been the President of Ukraine since February 2010.Yanukovych served as the Governor of Donetsk Oblast from 1997 to 2002...
's sagging popularity. Another theory was that Yanukovych was driven by the desire for revenge on Kuchma, who often humiliated Yanukovych and refused to use force to stop the Orange Revolution
Orange Revolution
The Orange Revolution was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate aftermath of the run-off vote of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election which was claimed to be marred by massive corruption, voter...
in 2004. Political analysts suggested that Yanukovych's "display of justice" could also be aimed at winning credit from the West, which has criticised him for usurping power and squeezing out democracy.
Remembrance
Gongadze remains unburied, as Lesya Gongadze, the journalist's mother, has refused to have the body interred until the head has been found.President
President of Ukraine
Prior to the formation of the modern Ukrainian presidency, the previous Ukrainian head of state office was officially established in exile by Andriy Livytskyi. At first the de facto leader of nation was the president of the Central Rada at early years of the Ukrainian People's Republic, while the...
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is a former President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution...
awarded Gongadze the title Hero of Ukraine
Hero of Ukraine
Hero of Ukraine is the highest state decoration that can be conferred upon an individual citizen by the Government of Ukraine. The title was created in 1998 by President Leonid Kuchma and as of August 25 2011 the total number of awards is 265. The award is divided into two classes of distinction:...
on 23 August 2005.
In June 2005 Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
's Industrialnaya Street was renamed Georgy Gongadze Street. August 2008 a monument to journalist Gongadze and all journalists killed for their professional activities was opened in Kiev in a park in Chervonoarmiyska street, but Gongadze's mother, Lesya Gongadze, was against erecting a monument until the investigation is completed. She repeated her wish "to remove the monument to Gongadze" after a meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a Ukrainian politician who has been the President of Ukraine since February 2010.Yanukovych served as the Governor of Donetsk Oblast from 1997 to 2002...
on 22 June 2010, she also added her discontent with "political forces" holding "PR campaigns" regarding the Gongadze murder case.
A literary token of respect for the work and courage of Gongadze is to be found in the novel for young adults, "Fair Game: The Steps of Odessa" (Spire Publishing, 2008, ISBN 1-897312-72-5) by James Watson. The book is dedicated to Giya Gongadze, but the theme, of a persecuted journalist and the impact of his revelations about government corruption on his football-playing daughter, Natasha, and his son Lonya, has strong similarities to Gongadze's own fate.
In Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
and Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
ceremonies marking the disappearance of Gongadze where held on 16 September 2010 (ten years after his disappearance).
Timeline of reporters killed in Ukraine
Under former PresidentPresident of Ukraine
Prior to the formation of the modern Ukrainian presidency, the previous Ukrainian head of state office was officially established in exile by Andriy Livytskyi. At first the de facto leader of nation was the president of the Central Rada at early years of the Ukrainian People's Republic, while the...
Leonid Kuchma
Leonid Kuchma
Leonid Danylovych Kuchma was the second President of independent Ukraine from 19 July 1994, to 23 January 2005. Kuchma took office after winning the 1994 presidential election against his rival, incumbent Leonid Kravchuk...
opposition papers were closed and several journalists died in mysterious circumstances.
Name spelling disambiguation
Note that the pronunciationPronunciation
Pronunciation refers to the way a word or a language is spoken, or the manner in which someone utters a word. If one is said to have "correct pronunciation", then it refers to both within a particular dialect....
and sometimes spelling
Spelling
Spelling is the writing of one or more words with letters and diacritics. In addition, the term often, but not always, means an accepted standard spelling or the process of naming the letters...
of Gongadze's name may differ following the phonetics
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...
of different languages. The original Georgian
Georgian language
Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
name, pronounced Georgi Gongadze in Georgian
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:* Something from or related to Georgia , a country in the Caucasus** Georgian alphabet** Georgian language** Georgian people** Georgian cuisine* Something from or related to the U.S...
, became Георгій Гонгадзе (Heorhiy Honhadze) and sometimes Георгій or Ґія Ґонґадзе (Heorhiy or Giia Gongadze) in Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
, and Георгий Гонгадзе (Georgiy Gongadze) in Russian. Ukrainian officials often refer to him as Heorhiy Honhadze, as per the pronunciation of the letter Г (H) in Ukrainian, but not of the letter Ґ (G). This pronunciation is also used in the common dialect of southern Russia. After a recent linguistic reform, Ukrainians have recovered the letter Ґ (Ghe) for G, a letter which had been banned during the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
(The letter Ґ (Ghe) was re-introduced after the indpenedence of Ukraine. It had been banned by the Soviet linguistic reform of 1933 as being "non-Ukrainian" (read "too different from Russian for a little brother") and "improper"). Hence the more correct spelling of Gongadze's last name in Ukrainian (Ґонґадзе), according to the Georgian pronunciation. Some sources also refer to him as Georgy Gongadze.
See also
- Myroslava GongadzeMyroslava GongadzeMyroslava Gongadze is a Ukrainian journalist and political activist now living in the United States. Her husband, journalist Georgiy Gongadze, was abducted and murdered in 2000...
, widow of Georgiy Gongadze. - Orange RevolutionOrange RevolutionThe Orange Revolution was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate aftermath of the run-off vote of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election which was claimed to be marred by massive corruption, voter...
- Ukrayinska PravdaUkrayinska PravdaUkrayinska Pravda is a popular Ukrainian internet newspaper, founded by Georgiy R. Gongadze in April, 2000...
- Olena PrytulaOlena PrytulaOlena Prytula is a Ukrainian journalist, the editor-in-chief, owner of the Ukrayinska Pravda, an influential online newspaper that focuses on news and political coverage in Ukraine.-Early life:...
, co-founder of Ukrayinska Pravda - Freedom of the press in UkraineFreedom of the press in UkraineAlthough press freedom in Ukraine has never been rated higher that "partly free" by Freedom House it is still considered to be among the freest of all post-Soviet states and has significantly improved since the Orange Revolution of 2004...
- Vasyl KlymentyevVasyl KlymentyevVasyl Petrovich Klymentyev was a Ukrainian investigative journalist and was the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Novy Stil based in Kharkiv. He went missing in August 2010 and is presumed dead....
, journalist who disappeared in 2010