Andrea Joy Campbell: “for nearly 4 years the case of murdered Ukrainian investigative journalist Heorhiy Gongadze has gone unsolved, despite…”

“for nearly 4 years the case of murdered Ukrainian investigative journalist Heorhiy Gongadze has gone unsolved, despite repeated calls by the Helsinki Commission, the State Department, and the international community for a fair and impartial investigation into this case. As cochairman of the Helsinki Commission, I have met with Gongadze's widow and their young twin daughters. Besides the human tragedy of the case, the Gongadze murder is a case study of the Ukrainian authority's utter contempt for the rule of law. Gongadze, who was editor of the Ukrainian Internet news publication Ukrainska Pravda, which was critical of high-level corruption in Ukraine, disappeared in September 2000. His headless body was found in November of that year. That same month, audio recordings by a former member of the presidential security services surfaced that included excerpts of earlier conversations between Ukrainian President Kuchma and other senior officials discussing the desirability of Gongadze's elimination. Earlier this week, Ukraine's Prosecutor General's office announced that Ihor Honcharov, a high-ranking police officer who claimed to have information on how Ministry of Internal Affairs officials carried out orders to abduct Gongadze, died of "spinal trauma" while in police custody last year.”