Gongadze case: New excuse, same lack of transparency

The Pechersky District Court in Kyiv has yet again refused to make the trial of former police general Oleksy Pukach charged over the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze open.

Valentina Telychenko, the lawyer representing Myroslava Gongadze told journalists on Monday that the court had thus rejected her application for the case to be heard in an open court.

She said that as well as the justification given earlier that the hearings needed to be behind closed doors because of secret information in it, on Monday the court added a new one. It stated that this was because, according to data from the Prosecutor General’s Office, the criminal case against Pukach has been merged with another case concerning establishing others who ordered the murder.

“In the court’s view which is something new in Ukrainian legislation, the hearings into the Pukach trial in open regime could hinder the investigation of the case on establishing other possible commissioners of the murder”.