Two finalists of Supreme Court competition released Pukach, executor of assassination of Gongadze

Two finalists of the Supreme Court competition Serhiy Slynko and Stanislav Kravchenko released Oleksiy Pukach from custody in 2003. They changed a pre-trial measure for him from custody to a written undertaking not to leave the town, which allowed him to flee and hide until July 2009.

In 2013 Pukach was found guilty of the murder of Georgiy Gongadze and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Meanwhile, judge Serhiy Slynko also adopted politically motivated decisions during the presidency of Yanukovych: he was a member of cassation panels which adopted final verdicts against Yuriy Lutsenko, former Interior Minister and acting Prosecutor General (the CoE recognized the case as politically motivated); and against Pavlychenkos, who were recognized as political prisoners by the Parliament in 2014.