Kyiv Court of Appeals has declined to mitigate the life sentence of Oleksiy Pukach, the former head of Ukraine’s Department of External Surveillance, who in 2013 was found guilty of murdering Ukrainian journalist Heorhiy Gongadze.
Pukach’s defense insisted that he had no motive or criminal intent to commit murder. They asked for an eight-year prison term instead of a life sentence.
Pukach is one of four people who were found guilty of the murder. He was sentenced on January 29, 2013.
Gongadze was kidnapped and murdered in September 2000. A prominent independent journalist, he was known for his reporting on high-level corruption.
From the report:
The SMM monitored the security situation in the area of Kominternove (23km north-east of Mariupol). At the last Ukrainian Armed Forces checkpoint at the south-western entrance to the village, the checkpoint commander told the SMM that about 15 vehicles were "travelling back and forth per day". The SMM saw one civilian vehicle entering the village. In the vicinity of the checkpoint, the SMM observed approximately 10 anti-tank mines, tied together by wire, placed along a side-track of the road. The SMM could not reach the village from the east and south, as armed “DPR” members denied the SMM access to the village.