Ihor Maryinkov, a witness in a criminal case on the murder of MP Yevhen Scherban, has said that the reason for the MP's murder in 1996 was the business interests of former Prime Ministers Yulia Tymoshenko and Pavlo Lazarenko and that Tymoshenko paid for the killing.
"When Riabin [a co-leader of a criminal gang] underwent treatment, we had a conversation, and I asked him why he was so nervous. And he said that there was an order from Lazarenko in the interests of Tymoshenko.... that there was a certain threat to Yulia Volodymyrivna [Tymoshenko] from Scherban, and there was an order [to kill Danko President Oleksandr] Momot and Scherban," he said at a court hearing on Thursday, when asked by prosecutors what he knows about the circumstances of the order to kill Scherban.
When asked to comment on the reasons for the murder, the witness said: "I understand that the interests Tymoshenko Scherban coincided. I knew that Lazarenko had bloodlust and I knew his story from the 1970s... It may have been the motive."
That is, according to Maryinkov, these were business interests.
"Nothing personal, just business," he added.
While talking about the payment for the killing, the witness said: "Pasha [Pavlo Lazarenko] instructed Yulia [Tymoshenko] to pay this money from her accounts, and the money was transferred to Milchenko's account, and it was the payment for Scherban's murder."
Maryinkov said the payment was about $1.8-2 million.
As reported, Scherban, a Verkhovna Rada deputy and a member of Liberal Party Executive Committee, was shot dead at the airport of Donetsk upon his arrival from Moscow on November 3, 1996. The assailants fled the scene in a car. Scherban, his wife and a mechanic died from gunshot wounds on the spot, and a flight engineer was wounded in the neck and died in hospital.
On April 17, 2003, the Court of Appeals of Luhansk region sentenced the murderers of Scherban and Head of the Ukrainian Interbank Currency Exchange, MP Vadym Hetman, to life imprisonment.
In particular, Vadym Bolotskykh was sentenced to life imprisonment and confiscation of property for Scherban's murder, and the same sentence was passed on Serhiy Kulev for Hetman's murder.
The court also found Bolotskykh guilty of killing Danko President Oleksandr Momot, and organizing an explosion at the Shakhtar Stadium in Donetsk in 1995 (that killed the president of FC Shakhtar and the head of the Lux company, Akhat Bragin).
In addition, the court sentenced Leonid Dobrobatko to life, with confiscation of his property, for murders and robberies. Five more people were sentenced to 11 to 15 years in prison for murders, assaults and robberies in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Kostiantyn Nikulin and Ihor Pushniakov were sentenced to 15 years in prison, with confiscation of their property, Eduard Kosyhin to 11.5 years in prison, with confiscation of his property, Mykola Malakhov and Serhiy Volodchenko to 11 years in prison, with confiscation of their property.
The defendants were part of a criminal group that operated in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The head of the group, Kushnir, died in Donetsk's detention center.
On January 18, 2013, Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka said that Tymoshenko had been handed a notification of being suspected of having organized, along with Lazarenko, the murder of MP Scherban. The article of the Criminal Code under which the notification was handed envisages life imprisonment. According to Pshonka, Tymoshenko and Lazarenko paid $2.8 million for Scherban's killing.
