Lost in translation

The high profile Gongadze case has been going for 14 years already, with numerous hearings held amid changes of government and personal reshuffles, but there has been no legal endpoint regarding people behind the murder of journalist Heorhii Gongadze and beating of civic activist Oleksii Podolsky. The current government is equally unwilling to take responsibility. Over its brief time at the country’s helm, the Kyiv Court of Appeals postponed the Pukach trial for two times already. The former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Ukraine’s department of external surveillance Oleksii Pukach is treated as the chief perpetrator of these crimes. The Pechersk District Court sentenced him to life imprisonment in January 2013, but Pukach appealed against this decision later.

Last time, the court’s pretext to postpone the trial was the need to clarify with the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), the MIA and the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) whether the case in question involved any state secrets. It was to determine the hearings’ nature, closed or open. As a result, it was reported that the SSU, the MIA, and the PGO asked the court to provide them with the criminal case file to be able to determine their stance on the presence or absence of the state secrets in it. While the court is trying to find out whether it should hold closed or open hearings, preventing journalists from entering the courtroom looks as strange as it did last time.

The April 28 hearing did not end without its own scandal. The court is actually engaging in delaying tactics, all parties agree. Victim Podolsky said that presiding judge Tetiana Frich had cited unavailability of a properly equipped courtroom as the reason for postponing the hearing until June 5. “The judge announced that the hearing would be closed, but in fact the press was not allowed for other reasons: acting president Oleksandr Turchynov does not want to solve this case now, he does not want to prosecute former president Leonid Kuchma, and unavailability of a courtroom is used as an excuse,” Podolsky said.

Myroslava Gongadze’s attorney Valentyna Telychenko holds a different view, as she believes that “the Court of Appeals’ judges are simply afraid to take responsibility and send the case for a new investigation.”

As it turned out, the true reasons are deeper than that. According to Podolsky’s court representative Oleksandr Yeliashkevych, the Helsinki Commission of the US Congress recently sent a letter to acting president Turchynov, which deals with high profile cases in Ukraine. Civic activist Hanna Hopko posted the original of this letter on Facebook.

“As a member of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the “US Helsinki Commission”), I am called upon to monitor human rights violations committed abroad,” Congressman Steve Cohen’s letter to Turchynov reads in part. “Most recently, I have become familiar and very concerned with three high profile criminal cases in Ukraine: (i) the violent attack on People’s Deputy Oleksandr Yeliashkevych, (ii) the abduction of journalist and social activist Oleksii Podolsky, and (iii) the brutal murder of journalist Heorhii Gongadze. In all three of these cases, it does not appear that justice has been carried out to the fullest extent of the law. I believe that a proper investigation and legitimate prosecution of those responsible would signify a major step toward Ukraine being viewed as a true democracy, especially in light of the notoriety of these cases.”

The Day learned from Podolsky and Yeliashkevych after the April 28 hearing that judge Frich had received Cohen’s letter as well, but she refused to read it out at the hearing because of her ignorance of the English language. “According to the judge,” Yeliashkevych said, “she has a translation available, too, but she needs the official translation. So what is the problem? They had to provide it. I think it was because of this letter that the judge and the powerful figures behind her were forced to postpone the trial after the election, because no one wants to take responsibility, especially when high profile cases in Ukraine are monitored by the Helsinki Commission of the US Congress.”