A court in Ukraine has sentenced three former police officers to prison for the murder of investigative journalist Georgiy Gongadze.
Mr Gongadze was openly critical of Ukraine's former regimeMykola Protasov was given a sentence of 13 years, while Valeriy Kostenko and Oleksandr Popovych were each handed 12-year terms.
Mr Gongadze's death, in 2000, sparked widespread protests in the Ukraine.
His family said the high-profile trial had failed to bring the masterminds behind the killing to justice.
Thirty-one year-old Mr Gongadze was an outspoken critic of the former regime led by Leonid Kuchma.
He was abducted in September 2000 and his headless body was found two months later buried in a forest.
The killing triggered a political scandal, especially after the emergence of secretly recorded tapes that allegedly implicated Mr Kuchma.
The former president, who was in power until 2004, denies any involvement.
From a Reporters without Borders news release:
Ukraine’s deputy prosecutor-general Mykola Holomsha, said at the start of the month that he was waiting for the results of the expert analysis of the recordings made by former President Leonid Kuchma’s bodyguard, Mykola Melnychenko. As soon as they are known, the court could formally charge “certain persons” with organising Gongadze’s murder, he said.