Georgiy Gongadze

Who was Georgiy Gongadze?

Georgiy Ruslanovich Gongadze was a Ukrainian journalist of Georgian origin who was kidnapped and murdered in 2000.

The circumstances of his death became a national scandal and a focus for protests against the government of the then President, Leonid Kuchma. During the Cassette Scandal, audiotapes were released on which Kuchma, Volodymyr Lytvyn and other top-level administration officials are allegedly heard discussing the need to silence Gongadze for his online news reports about high-level corruption. Former Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko died of two gunshots to the head on 4 March 2005, just hours before he was to begin providing testimony as a witness in the case. Kravchenko was the superior of the four policeman who were charged with Gongadze's murder soon after Kravchenko's death. The official ruling of suicide was doubted by media reports.

Three former officials of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's foreign surveillance department and criminal intelligence unit accused of his murder were arrested in March 2005 and a fourth one in July 2009. A court in Ukraine sentenced Protasov to a sentence of 13 years and Kostenko and Popovych to 12-year terms March 2008 for the murder.