A positive signal in the Pukach case

The Gongadze-Podolsky case is now in the hands of the High Specialized Court for Civil and Criminal Cases. On October 12 it began to examine appeals against the sentence imposed on Oleksii Pukach, the main perpetrator of the crimes. First of all, this court calls to mind a well-known episode in 2012, when Kuchma’s son-in-law Viktor Pinchuk came to the court on the very eve of the session that was going to examine the complaint of the Prosecutor General’s Office against the decision that it was unlawful to open a case against Leonid Kuchma in connection with the crimes against Gongadze and Podolsky. As a result, the Yanukovych government never resolved to carry the Kuchma case through, but the methods, particularly Pinchuk’s visit to the court, were easy to understand.

As for the High Specialized Court’s session about Pukach, the impression is positive so far. Firstly, the aggrieved party in the case, Oleksii Podolsky, has now a new lawyer, Tetiana Kostina. He justifies the reinforcement of his team by the fact that most of his representatives will be no longer able to defend his interests at the Supreme Court after January 1, 2017, because the norm about exclusively professional advocacy in courts will come into force. “In reality, this means destruction of the human rights movement in Ukraine and establishment of the monopoly of advocacy,” Podolsky said at the session. In her turn, Kostina emphasized in a comment to The Day: “This case is very important for me as a lawyer and a citizen, not to mention the entire country, for it is a key to solving a lot of problems in our society.”

Secondly, the parties to the trial have filed a number of petitions. In particular, Podolsky’s representative Oleksandr Yeliashkevych has raised an objection to Valentyna Telychenko, representative of Gongadze’s widow Myroslava. “There are many reasons why,” Yeliashkevych pointed out. “Firstly, she used to be a witness in this case, and, secondly, Telychenko was recently in fact a deputy of Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko. This does not allow her to represent Myroslava Gongadze’s interests, not to mention the moral side of the matter, when, for example, she spoke at the Court of Appeal against the invitation of Kuchma to the court as even a witness, although Myroslava herself said recently in public that Kuchma must be in prison together with Pukach.”

Telychenko said in reply that it was decided positively during the pre-trial investigation and the trial that she could testify as a witness and, accordingly, represent the interests of Myroslava Gongadze, and she was never officially appointed deputy prosecutor general. Representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office backed Telychenko.

Podolsky’s party also demanded that the court session be adjourned by at least a month so that the new lawyer Kostina could study the case’s materials. The aggrieved person himself made another important statement: “Firstly, the court must react to the fact that, when a trial court was hearing the case, Prosecutor General’s Office representatives and Valentyna Telychenko intimidated Pukach into saying that the crimes were ordered not by Leonid Kuchma and Volodymyr Lytvyn but by Oleksandr Moroz and Yevhen Marchuk, but the Prosecutor General’s Office refused to these public statements of Pukach. Secondly, I wonder why Pukach was sent to the Chortkiv prison camp in Ternopil oblast, where ordinary convicts, not former law-enforcers, are kept. It is dangerous for his life – Pukach may be liquidated as an important witness, as far as crime masterminds are concerned.” Pukach himself and his lawyers backed Podolsky.

After a short break and consultations, the judges resolved to:

1. File, for further examination, the documents that were submitted as grounds for challenging Valentyna Telychenko, representative of the aggrieved party Myroslava Gongadze. Also file the submitted supplements to appeals from all the sides.

2. Resolve the question of challenging the aggrieved party’s representative at the next court session after studying the submitted materials and finding out the opinion of the aggrieved party Myroslava Gongadze herself about this matter.

3. Duly notify Andrii Fedur, who was representative of the aggrieved party, the late Lesia Gongadze, about the next court session in order to identify his status at the stage of this appeal.

4. Forward the aggrieved party Podolsky’s statements at the trial about such crimes as pressuring Pukach during the pre-trial investigation and the trial and violation of the regulations about the place of serving the term to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine in order to enter this into the Single Register of Pre-Trial Investigation and launch an effective inquiry into these statements, as well as to notify of this the parties that are subject to notification by law.

5. Taking into account that everybody has supported the petition to adjourn the hearing because the aggrieved party Podolsky’s new lawyer should study the materials, the court hereby satisfies this part of the petition and adjourns the hearing of this case until 10 a.m., November 16.

“The first session and the judges we saw have so far made a positive impression on us,” Podolsky’s representative Viktor Shyshkin, the first Prosecutor General of Ukraine in 1991-93 and a Constitutional Court judge in 2006-15, says to The Day. “They heeded the petitions, and even when some of the trial participants behaved too emotionally, they still showed patience. As a result, all of our petitions were in fact satisfied. As for the Telychenko question, they really need time to examine all the documents attached to the petition. It is also necessary to find out the position of Myroslava Gongadze. On the whole, although the signals are positive, it is too early to draw conclusions about the case. Let’s wait and see.”