Crime and Punishment

Last Thursday an Odesa court was to pass judgment in the Derevyanko murder case. But mysteriously erased police video footage has already made this trial a farce.

Last week marked the second anniversary of a tragic death of Kievskie Vedomosti correspondent Petro Shevchenko. The case remains unsolved. A number of newspapers had to close down after being sued and exorbitant judgments against them. And how many beatings, threats, and other harassment do Ukrainian journalists suffer daily in the line of duty? It seems like the executive and judiciary have joined forces with criminal structures against the press, with only the legislature from time to time thinking about journalists.

On Wednesday, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on the Freedom of Expression and Information Ivan Chyzh announced that the Committee intends to legislatively limit the maximum reimbursement amount for lawsuits against newspapers to 2% of annual profit, for editorial offices, and 100 minimum salaries, for individual journalists. Criminal liability will also be envisioned for harassment of the media.

While artists and sculptors worked to immortalize the memory of the Vecherniaya Odessa editor, who was shot dead by a contract killer on his way to work on August 11, 1997, the city suddenly became rife with rumors: the criminal case of those arrested for the murder is on the verge of falling apart. A number of documents irretrievable to the judicial investigation have vanished without a trace, and the accused have recanted their previous testimony.

The very first interrogations of the defendants at the trial presided over by Yuri Pohorily confirmed: the prison telegraph does not bluff. Three of the five charged with the killing announced their previous evidence had allegedly been obtained by illegal methods.

Stop! Was there not a video-taped confession by, say, "brigade leader" Oleksandr Hlek given in the presence of lawyer Pyatyhorets and criminal prosecutor of the Prosecutor General's Office Maniskevych? The defendants did not object to watching the video cassettes at the trial. However, the video-taped interrogations, seizure of firearms and the defendant Hlek's acting-out of the murder on location, done with due account of all procedural requirements, turned out to have been carefully erased. And it is far from easy to establish where and by whom the five tapes were "cleaned up" in one of the cozy rooms of the oblast prosecutor's office or the oblast court. The point is the 15 volumes of the murder case, including documentary video-tapes, "traveled" three times last year from the prosecutor's office to the court and the other way round: the servants of Themis insisted the case be further investigated.

Making sure during the trial that the interrogation tapes were missing, the defendants bet the farm, as they put it: they pleaded not guilty and said the previous evidence had been given "under duress," so only their current testimony should be regarded as valid.

Asked by The Day, Odesa mayor Ruslan BODELAN commented on the situation concerning the loss of documents: "The fact is simply terrible. I lack adequate words. It is absolutely unclear to me how it could have happened in the investigation offices or court. What I am absolutely convinced in is: all this was done intentionally. But, on the other hand, there are specific officials responsible for the safety of documents in the oblast prosecutor's office or court. And it is completely beyond understanding why nobody has so far been punished for the loss of the documents. I want to remind you: immediately after the murder of Boris Derevyanko I said I had no doubts the crime had been contracted for and the Vecherniaya Odessa editor 'liquidated' for political reasons. And nobody will convince me to the contrary."

Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada's Auditing Office Valentyn SYMONENKO, who knew Mr. Derevyanko personally, expressed an opinion in a conversation with our correspondent that the journalist had been killed because he intended to run for mayor.
By Mykhailo AKSANIUK, The Day
 

INCIDENTALLY

Murderer of Vecherniaya Odessa
Editor Sentenced to Death
On March 18 the Odesa oblast court collegium presided over by Yuri Pohorely, which has been investigating for six months the murder of Borys Derevianko, editor of the newspaper Vecherniaya Odessa, on August 11, 1997, has found Aleksandr Glek, 42, citizen of the Republic of Moldova, guilty of a contract killing and sentenced him to execution by firing squad. Glek's defense attorney Mykola Bondar, member of the oblast bar association, told The Day's Mykhailo Aksaniuk that he considers the sentence ill-founded and intends to file an appeal to the Supreme Court of Ukraine.