Prominent Ukrainian human rights campaigner Dmytro Groisman died from a heart attack on August 5, his friends announced on the Facebook social networking Web site.

Groisman had suffered from a heart disease for the past few years.

Groisman was born in the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia and had a degree in forensic pathology and law. He was one of the founders of the Vinnytsia unit of the Amnesty International human rights organization. He coordinated a nationwide campaign for abolishing the death penalty in Ukraine from 1994 to 2000. He established the Vinnytsia Human Rights Group in 1998.