Kiev  - A former police general has been charged in the murder of a high-profile Ukrainian journalist nine years ago, the news agency Interfax reported Friday.

Oleksy Pukach was detained earlier this week on suspicion of involvement in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Georgy Gongadze in September 2000.

Prosectors hope to learn from him whether senior officials in the former Soviet republic authorized the killing of Gongadze, an editor of a website critical of the government at the time.

Pukach mentioned the involvement of "high-ranking persons," when quizzed by investigators, according to Ukraine's domestic intelligence service SBU.

During the late 1990s Gongadze headed up one of the few independent media in all Ukraine, and by far the most daring.

His website published transcripts of dozens of hours of tapes secretly recorded in then-President Leonid Kuchma's office, seemingly implicating much of the Kuchma administration in corruption, illegal arms trading, and vote fraud, among other crimes.

Three former police officers were convicted of participating in his murder in 2008 and of beheading the body, setting it alight, and burying what was left in an unmarked forest grave.

Kuchma's government dragged its feet on an investigation into the killing for years, but failed to bury the case because of opposition political groups within Ukraine and international criticism.

A reopened investigation brought the three former cops to trial after Viktor Yushchenko, a politician supporting market reforms and a European-style government, succeeded Kuchma in early 2006.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Yury Kravchenko - according to widespread Ukrainian news reports the man giving instructions to kidnap Gongadze - committed suicide in 2005, only hours before he was scheduled to give evidence on his connection with the case.(dpa)