A fugitive top policeman charged with the murder of an investigative reporter in Ukraine has been arrested in a development President Viktor Yushchenko said showed senior officials could not act with impunity.
A senior official of the SBU security service, quoted by national media, said Oleksiy Pukach was detained yesterday in a village in central Ukraine and had already acknowledged his involvement in the 2000 murder of Georgy Gongadze.
Mr Gongadze's headless corpse was found outside Kiev two months after he disappeared in September of that year. His murder caused a political storm in Ukraine which at one stage threatened to engulf the then head of state, Leonid Kuchma.
Deputy SBU chief Vasyl Hrytsak said Mr Pukach had disclosed who had ordered the murder and told investigators he would lead them to the site where the reporter's severed head was concealed.
Three policemen were arrested soon after pro-Western "Orange Revolution" protests propelled President Viktor Yushchenko to office, but it has not been established who ordered the murder.
Mr Pukach, a general and interior ministry official, had been on the run since 2003. He was charged in absentia with the murder of Gongadze, a vocal opponent of Kuchma.
Mr Yushchenko, who had long described the investigation as a "matter of honour", predicted the murder would soon be solved.
Reuters