Protasov’s death raises questions

Important events are unfolding even during the breaks between the proceedings on the appeal of Pukach, who is found guilty of the murder of journalist Gongadze as well as of kidnapping and attack on public figure Podolsky. Some of these events often exceed the trial itself in significance.

The first one is as follows. It was reported that past week Mykola Protasov, former department chief of Crime detection Department of the MIA, who was convicted of the complicity in Gongadze’s murder, had died and was buried at one of the Kyiv cemeteries, having served 10 years of his 13-years sentence. What had happened? It is difficult to assert something unambiguously, but the words of Renat Kuzmin, former First Deputy Prosecutor General who once opened a criminal case against Kuchma, inevitably come to mind: “there is a multitude of deaths related to Gongadze case.”

Viktor Chevhuz, Protasov’s lawyer, commented to the press that his “client had been ill in recent years and died a natural death in the medical unit of Mena penal colony; no signs of violent death were found.” Chevhuz also noted that “ex-colonel Protasov never pleaded guilty and was impenitent.”

“The first suspicious and noteworthy thing is that we learned of Protasov’s death not after it had happened, but several days after his burial,” says Oleksii Podolsky, another victim in Gongadze case. “The other thing is Pukach’s statements that Prosecutor General’s Office does not want to investigate. The statements relate to Pukach’s blackmail at the Pechersk court, in which judge Melnyk, prosecutors Shylov and Voloshyn and other officials had participated – according to Pukach, Valentyna Telychenko had also been among them. Pukach also claimed that Telychenko repeatedly visited that colony and delivered food, clothes, and money to the convicted. It is unusual to find her there – what kind of connection might she have with the murderers, especially after the trial had been resolved?”

“Telychenko’s travels to the colony coincide with the time, when she, as Pukach alleges, blackmailed him and demanded to name Marchuk and Moroz as the instigators of the crime,” Podolsky continues. “These trips might be related to the fact that apart from Pukach’s testimony, she needed to secure the account of another witnesses, the executors of the crime. And now those witnesses are passing away. I think that investigation needed to question Pukach’s partners in crime – what had Telychenko wanted from them? Another coincidence is the suspension and the ensuing dismissal of Bahanets, former Deputy Prosecutor General who is well-known as the Gongadze case falsifier. The same Bahanets who refused to investigate Pukach’s claims.”

The second event happened simultaneously with Protasov’s death – Sviatoslav Piskun, ex-Prosecutor General, made sensational statements that actually relate to Gongadze case. One may regard that individual ambiguously, but the following words, describing his meeting with oligarch Viktor Pinchuk in an interview to glavcom.ua, simply cannot be ignored: “…and I am sitting, looking at him and then a realization hits me, that I am talking to a non compos person. He does not want to stop: ‘You will be accounted for! You are an enemy of my family! You are my personal mortal enemy!’ And then I say: ‘So what, are you going to cut my head off like Gongadze’s?’ He responds: ‘we know what we are doing.’ Then I filed a statement to the police on the account that he threatened me [this portion of the interview was related to what had been happening on the eve of parliamentary elections of 2014. – Author].”

“I don’t want to comment Piskun’s statements, but when he describes these direct threats… I believe him,” continues Podolsky. “I know that Pinchuk-Kuchma family is not easy. I hope that further investigation on the blackmail at the Pechersk court and the Gongadze case falsification will reveal the person responsible of these frauds and wrongful decision of judges.”