Stele with Kuchma's bas-relief in Dnipro trashed with red paint. PHOTO
In Dnipro city, unknown persons painted a stele with a bas-relief of the second president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma.
Censor.NET reports citing Vidkrytyi TV channel.
"On Thursday, June 6, in the Dnipro, unknown persons painted a stele, which is dedicated to the president of Ukraine in 1994-2005, Leonid Kuchma ... Kuchma's bas-relief is crossed out with red paint," the report said.
In addition, below the bas-relief the inscription "Who killed Gongadze?" is put.
As reported, founder of Ukrainska Pravda news website, journalist Heorhii Gongadze disappeared Sept. 16, 2000. His decapitated corpse was later found in the forest in Kyiv's vicinity. Ex-Chief of Interior Ministry's Directed Surveillance Department Oleksii Pukach was arrested on charges of commission of this crime in a village in the Zhytomyr region July 21, 2009.
The investigation found that Pukach received a verbal order to eliminate Heorhii Gongadze from then-Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Yurii Kravchenko. The criminal ring led by Pukach consisting of members of the Main Directorate of the Interior Ministry Valerii Kostenko, Oleksandr Popovych (both sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2008), and Mykola Protasov (got 13 years in prison in 2008) committed the murder Sept. 17, 2000.
The court found Pukach guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment Jan. 23, 2013. Asked by the judge whether he agreed with the verdict, Pukach said: "I will agree with it when I will be sharing this cage with Kuchma and Lytvyn." The Kyiv Court of Appeal upheld the verdict Jan. 6, 2016.
