Ukrainian investigators said they have discovered what they believe are the remains of the skull of murdered Internet journalist Heorhiy Gongadze.
Officials said they made the discovery outside the capital, Kyiv, after former top Ukrainian police officer Olexy Pukach led them to the location. Prosecutors Friday formally charged Pukach with the grisly murder after arresting him earlier in the week and obtaining his confession.
In his Internet articles, Gongadze had exposed corruption in the government of then-President Leonid Kuchma. Gongadze disappeared in September 2000. His decapitated body was found two months later outside Kyiv.
Pukach headed Ukraine's Interior Ministry surveillance unit at the time of the crime.
Earlier, authorities said Pukach was thought to have personally strangled the 31-year-old victim.
Pukach was arrested in 2003 on suspicion of destroying documents in the case and then released. He disappeared a short while later. He was indicted in absentia for murder in 2005.
A Ukrainian court last year sentenced three other former police officers to terms of up to 13 years in prison for the Gongadze murder.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.