Aleksei Pukach

Washington, D.C., September 16, 2019 — The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed concern over the appeal of Aleksei Pukach, a man convicted of murdering Ukrainian journalist Georgy Gongadze. The appeal hearings began in Ukraine’s Supreme Court on September 4 and will resume on October 9, according to news reports.

We received an unusual email last week. Michaella Ortega wrote to tell us that Marlon Recamata, who confessed to shooting her father, Philippine journalist Gerardo Ortega, in 2011, had been convicted and sentenced to life for the crime.

More than 12 years after several police officers strangled and beheaded muckraking online reporter Georgy Gongadze in a forest outside Kiev, justice in the case is still evasive and riddled with, well, riddles.

The first online journalist killed for his work disappeared one night 12 years ago in the Ukraine. Georgy Gongadze, 31, left a colleague’s house to return home to his wife and two young children. He never arrived. Seven weeks later, a farmer, a few hours’ drive away, discovered the journalist’s headless corpse. Gongadze edited the website Ukrainska…