The murder of Ukrainian investigative journalist Georgiy Gongadze was ordered by a former interior minister, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said on Tuesday.
Gongadze, known for his criticism of the Ukrainian government, was kidnapped on September 16, 2000, and his decapitated body was found two months later in a wooded area near Kiev. The murder sparked protests against then-president Leonid Kuchma.
"Since he [former interior minister Yury Kravchenko] is now dead, court procedures will be stopped against him because of his death," Yury Boychenko told the Ukrainian online daily Ukrainska Pravda.
Kravchenko, who served as interior minister in 1995-2001, was suspected of being directly linked to one of Ukraine's most high-profile murders. He was found dead with two gunshot wounds to the head shortly before he was to give his testimony on the Gongadze case.
A suicide note, in which Kravchenko said he was "not guilty of anything" and "became a victim of the political intrigues of President Kuchma" was proved to be authentic and suicide was claimed to be the official cause of his death.
Many experts expressed doubts about the theory, saying that Kravchenko could hardly first fire a bullet through his chin and then another into his temple. There were also reports that he had two fingers on his right hand broken.
"Probably, new facts will emerge during the trial, which may have an influence on the court's ruling," the spokesman for the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office added.
In August 2005, three men who carried out the killing - Col. Valeriy Kostenko, Col. Mykola Protasov and Maj. Oleksandr Popovych - were arrested. They received prison sentences of between 12 and 13 years.
The officers, who admitted the murder, said that the killing had been carried out on orders from the former head of the ministry's criminal investigations department, Lt. Gen. Oleksa Pukach.
Pukach evaded arrest and fled to Israel. He was put on Ukraine's most-wanted list and subsequently arrested in summer 2009 in Kiev.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainska Pravda quoted an investigator's report dated September 7, 2010, as saying that "approximately on September 13-14, in his office in Kiev... Interior Minister Yury Kravchenko gave Pukach a clearly wrongful verbal order to murder journalist Georgiy Gongadze in order to stop his journalist activity."
"Pukach, acting pursuant to personal motives and career aspirations... decided to obey Kravchenko's order, that is to say, agreed to kill Gongadze," it says.
Investigators earlier denied that Ukrainian ex-president Kuchma was involved in the case. No charges have been set against him.
KIEV, September 14 (RIA Novosti)
