UKRAINE:THREE FORMER Ukrainian policemen have been jailed for the murder of investigative journalist Georgy Gongadze, whose death outraged much of the nation and helped spark the 2004 Orange Revolution.
Relatives of Mr Gongadze, who was a fierce critic of then Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, broadly welcomed the verdict but vowed to pursue the senior officials who they believe ordered the killing.
"Although we are not going to appeal, it's difficult to say that we are happy," said Valentyna Telychenko, a lawyer for the family of Mr Gongadze, whose headless body was found in woods outside Kiev two months after he disappeared in September 2000.
"Such a serious punishment of former policemen does not mean that the authorities should not find the people who ordered the policemen - people who should be fighting crime - to commit crimes," she said.
A court in Kiev sentenced Mykola Protasov to 13 years in prison, and Valeriy Kostenko and Oleksandr Popovych to 12 years.
Though he has never faced charges for the murder, a parliamentary commission implicated Mr Kuchma in the crime.
One of his bodyguards released secretly recorded tapes on which a man with a voice very similar to the former president's is heard discussing how to "deal with" Mr Gongadze, apparently with then interior minister Yuri Kravchenko.
Mr Kravchenko died in mysterious circumstances - officially explained as suicide - last year. And another key suspect, Olexiy Pukach, has disappeared, supposedly having fled Ukraine.
Widespread public outrage at the death of Mr Gongadze, and the alleged involvement of Mr Kuchma and senior officials, fuelled anger at his regime.
This culminated in the Orange Revolution of 2004, which swept pro-western leaders into power in Ukraine.
One of them, prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, vowed this week that the people who ordered Mr Gongadze's killing would be found.
