MARY MYCIO - The other Khashoggi: A gruesome death in Ukraine provides a warning for those following the murder of the Saudi journalist
An opposition journalist
disappears. Anonymous tapes hint at his gruesome murder. An autocrat selling
himself as a pro-Western reformer, beset by intrigue at home, is blamed for the
death. In moral repugnance, the democratic world shuns him, sparking a foreign
policy crisis. If this sounds like
the case of Washington Post columnist Jamal
Khashoggi, that’s because it is. But the scenario also describes the
sensational disappearance in 2000 of journalist Georgi Gongadze in Ukraine.
Back then, the
autocrat was President Leonid Kuchma, who had appointed pro-Western Viktor
Yushchenko as prime minister. Gongadze’s headless body provided proof of his
death. And secret tapes, reportedly made by a bodyguard, pointed at the president.
That, at least, is the conventional wisdom. The real Gongadze
story is a cautionary tale about believing authoritarian governments in
sensational crimes where their leaders have much to gain or lose.
That may seem obvious.
Indeed, most observers are justifiably skeptical about Riyadh’s protests of
innocence. Yet, in the age of fake news and foreign disinformation, too many
have rushed to believe the juicy but anonymous government leaks from
Turkish media — the sole sources of nearly all the gory allegations in
the case. The CIA’s own apparent wiretaps are far more mundane and ambiguous.
Of the few exceptions, such as the recently reported transcripts prepared by
Turkish authorities of the most shocking alleged recordings, none have been
independently authenticated.
Georgi Gongadze, known as Gia, stood out as
a voice of opposition on his radio show in Kiev. Like the thrice-married
Khashoggi, about to embark on his fourth nuptials with a Turkish Ph.D. student
he met last May, Gongadze had a complicated personal life. He was married, a
father of twins with his second wife Myroslava, and he was having an affair
with Olena Prytula, a reporter in Kuchma’s exclusive press pool. In April, he and
Prytula started a political webzine called Ukraiinska Pravda, or “Ukrainian
Truth.” It had a shadowy sponsor, but the money was modest and so was UP, as
the publication came to be called. Few knew of it. Accidentally, I was one of
them. Less accidentally, so were some of Kuchma’s allies.
These allies used
leaks to pursue their goals and smear opponents, and the UP's republication of
dirt from Russian media did both while also fanning the president’s dislike of
Gongadze. When UP posted a Russian article with dirt about a crony’s son, for
example, the upset father told Kuchma — falsely — that Gongadze wrote it. By September, UP’s
secret sponsor had dropped the publication, and staff were quitting. The day of
Gongadze’s disappearance, which he spent with his mistress, the journalist was
mostly worried about money.
Prytula was the last
to see him alive. She was also the one to raise the alarm, and held a press
conference, joined by his wife, two days later. But many questioned the rush to
cry foul play.
Public interest waned.
Without a body, doubts lingered. Men caught between wives and lovers can skip
town, or worse. His wife, Myroslava, had a solid alibi. And Prytula evidendtly
had powerful protection. The police never interrogated her.
Then, in early
November, seven weeks after Gongadze disappeared, a grisly, headless corpse was
discovered in a forest near a town called Tarashcha. The body reportedly was
found with Gongadze’s necklace, though that detail was never confirmed. Kiev’s
top forensics expert said the corpse was too old to belong to the missing
journalist. Instead of having it buried, the town coroner kept the unidentified
corpse in the morgue... read more:
https://www.politico.eu/article/georgi-gongadze-murder-ukraine-journalist-leonid-kuchma-the-other-jamal-khashoggi/