A former Ukrainian police officer has been jailed for life for the murder in 2000 of the campaigning investigative journalist Georgiy Gongadze.
After he was sentenced, the ex-police general, Oleksiy Pukache, named the country's former president, Leonid Kuchma, as being equally guilty of the crime.
Pukach is the fourth police officer to be convicted of Gongadze's murder. The other three got jail terms of 12 and 13 years.
When the judge asked Pukach if he had understood the sentence, he replied: "I'll understand it better when Kuchma and [then presidential chief of staff Volodymyr] Lytvyn are seated here alongside me."
Gongadze, 31, wrote about political corruption and crime. His headless body was found in woods six weeks after he had been abducted in Kiev. It sparked huge street demonstrations that marked a turning point in Kuchma's 10-year rule, helping to stoke popular anger against sleaze and corruption, which led to the 2004 "Orange Revolution".
In March 2011 the general prosecutor's office opened a criminal case against Kuchma, who still lives in Kiev, on suspicion of giving illegal orders to senior interior ministry officials leading to the journalist's murder. But a court ruled that the prosecutor's case against Kuchma was unlawful.
Source: Reuters via The Guardian and The Scotsman
