The Supreme Court has put an end to the case involving General Pukach
The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court refused to consider the appeal filed by former General Oleksiy Pukach, who was convicted of the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze. The court thus upheld the previous rulings, thereby definitively concluding the review of his appeal.
Pukach had insisted on a review of the July 2, 2021, ruling by the Cassation Criminal Court within the Supreme Court, which upheld the sentences handed down by lower courts against the convicted general. In late January 2013, a Kyiv court sentenced the law enforcement officer to life in prison. Since then, Oleksiy Pukach has been serving his sentence at Chortkiv Penitentiary No. 26.
The convicted man appealed to the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court in May of this year. In his initial petition, Pukach argued that the trial court and the appellate court had handed down an unlawful verdict due to significant violations of the 1960 Criminal Procedure Code. In his view, he should have been sentenced to 15 years in prison. He also complained that he had been unjustifiably deprived of his right to a pension.
In the supplements attached to his petition, General Pukach sharply changed his position. He now asked the court to overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling and remand the case for appellate review. The point is, as the convicted man argued, the Pechersk District Court, which handed down the verdict in 2013, should have acquitted him of criminal liability due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. According to Pukach’s calculations, by mid-September 2010, ten years had passed since the murder of journalist Gongadze. By that date, the court had not yet issued a final verdict against him that would have taken effect.
At the same time, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court saw through the convicted man’s true intentions: “The petitioner’s arguments essentially boil down to disagreement with the factual circumstances of the criminal proceedings as established by the courts, the assessment of evidence, the classification of the acts, and the judicial decisions rendered against him. In essence, Pukach is raising the issue of a repeat cassation review of the court decisions with the aim of altering their content by having a different decision rendered in the criminal proceedings.”
The Supreme Court emphasized that the convicted person’s disagreement with the Supreme Court’s decision cannot serve as grounds for initiating proceedings before the Grand Chamber.
However, it is worth noting that there are grounds (so-called newly discovered or exceptional circumstances) under which this court may take a case under consideration. These include instances of evidence tampering or knowingly false testimony by witnesses or the defendant upon which the verdict is based. Alternatively, they include decisions by the European Court of Human Rights in cases where Ukraine’s violation of its international obligations in the adjudication of cases by local courts has been established.
Thus, by denying the convicted person’s petition, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court made it clear that the Pukach case does not involve newly discovered or exceptional circumstances.
The Grand Chamber’s ruling is final and not subject to appeal.
As is well known, late in the evening of September 16, 2000, an event occurred that changed the course of Ukrainian history. On that day, Georgiy Gongadze—a Ukrainian journalist known for his criticism of the then-ruling authorities—was abducted and killed a few hours later. He hosted a daily live news program on the “Kontinent” radio station and founded “Ukrainska Pravda.”
Georgiy’s decapitated body was found near Kyiv a month and a half later—on November 2. It took several more years for the investigation to identify the perpetrators of the crime.
The court proved that the perpetrators of Gongadze’s murder were the head of the external surveillance unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Lieutenant General of Police Oleksiy Pukach, as well as former Ministry of Internal Affairs employees Mykola Protasov (Pukach’s godfather), Valery Kostenko and Alexander Popovich, who were sentenced to 12–13 years in prison.
Protasov died in prison, while Kostenko and Popovich have already served their sentences.
This was reported by “Glavkom,” citing the court registry.
As a reminder, Gongadze’s daughter married an American expert on international politics.
