The Prosecutor General’s Office is deliberating over “secrets”

Attention to the Pukach trial has markedly grown lately, and it is a small victory in itself. While journalists present in the courtroom could be counted on the fingers of one hand earlier, the situation has fundamentally changed. Increased public attention could not help but affect the trial itself. It has become open, at least in the preparatory stage preceding appeal hearings on the merits. Currently, state secrets experts are seeking to ascertain, on the court’s request, whether the case file contains any secrets. How will the March 17 hearing be remembered, then?

Firstly, the victim Oleksii Podolsky’s requests to exclude from the trial public prosecutors Viktor Lobach and Roman Voloshyn, previously denied by the court, have now been granted by the decision of the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) itself. It delegated new representatives to the hearing: Oleh Troian, Serhii Yarmolenko, and Serhii Zdrak. “This is the result of journalistic attention to this case and public pressure,” Podolsky said at the hearing.

Photo by Artem SLIPACHUK, The Day

Secondly, Podolsky’s representative Oleksandr Yeliashkevych failed to attend. “He is in the US now,” Podolsky revealed. “Together with my American lawyers, he is informing the Helsinki Commission of the US Congress, which has long monitored high-profile cases in Ukraine, about what is happening in these cases, including both law-enforcement agencies’ behavior and appeal hearings. Yeliashkevych will rejoin the trial by the next hearing.”

We then saw a “verbal duel” start between presiding judge Stepan Hladii and Podolsky. The latter made a statement that sensational claims by Pukach (the disgraced general who stands accused of journalist Heorhii Gongadze’s murder and kidnapping and beating of public figure Podolsky) who complained during previous hearings of blackmail and threats against him coming from Pechersky District Court judge Andrii Melnyk, public prosecutors, and Myroslava Gongadze’s legal representative Valentyna Telychenko, had in fact gone unnoticed. “Our side, as represented by my attorney Vitalii Kuprii, received a response from deputy prosecutor general Oleksii Bahanets who stated that there were no grounds to investigate these allegations. Why are you not monitoring their response to the court of appeals’ request based on my petition on the same subject? Do you have any? Why are you failing to inform us?” Podolsky said.

“We have not heard anything from the PGO,” Hladii responded. However, after just a few minutes, public prosecutors presented to the court another decision of the PGO, repeating that there were no grounds to investigate the allegations.

“I demand the court to adjourn then,” the victim Podolsky continued. “Until we find out what happened in Pechersky District Court, we cannot consider the appeal in this court, because crimes are alleged to have been committed there.”

However, the panel of judges moved on to the next item on the agenda, saying that the court received responses from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), dealing with the alleged presence of classified evidence in the case file. The SBU response stated that evidence originating with that agency contained no state secrets, so open hearing of the case would not harm the national interests of Ukraine. The MIA said, meanwhile, that most of its evidence had been declassified, while some had to stay classified. The PGO has asked for more time before sending its response.

Given such developments, the court adjourned until 11 a.m., April 20.