Petro Kyrychenko, an adviser to former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, is to be interrogated next as witness in the criminal case on the murder of Ukrainian parliamentarian Yevhen Scherban, who was shot dead in 1996.

The investigating judge of Pechersky District Court of Kyiv, Oksana Tsarevych, said that Kyrychenko would be questioned on April 19 Arseniy at 1600.

Deputy Head of the main department investigating especially important cases of the Ukrainian Prosecutor's General Office, Oleh Pushkar, said the witness would be interrogated via a video linkup, as Kyrychenko is now in the United States.

As reported, earlier two criminal cases were opened against Kyrychenko and one criminal case was opened against his wife Isabella. However, later on Kyiv's Pechersky District Court ruled to cancel the cases.

Kyrychenko was accused under a criminal case against Lazarenko. In 1995-1996 two criminal cases were opened against him under Part 5 of Article 91 of the Criminal Code (appropriation of state property in especially big amount via abuse of power by an official upon preliminary collusion with a group of people) and Part 1 of Article 206 of the Criminal Code (illegal acquisition and keeping of a gun).

Kyrychenko was the key witness for the prosecution against Lazarenko in a U.S. court. Kyrychenko was released under the Witness Security Program in the U.S., but his property in Ukraine was arrested.

In summer 2012 a separate criminal case was opened against Kyrychenko. On September 27, 2012 Pechersky District Court ruled to close the criminal case due to the expiry of the limitation of time.

As reported, Yevhen Scherban, a member of the Liberal Party's executive committee and a Verkhovna Rada deputy, was shot dead at the Donetsk airport on his arrival from Moscow on November 3, 1996. The gunmen fled the scene by car. Scherban, his wife and a mechanic died on the spot from gunshot wounds. The plane's flight engineer died later in the hospital. Law enforcement officers ruled out there being political motives behind the case.

In April 2003, the Court of Appeals of Luhansk region sentenced Vadym Bolotskykh to life imprisonment for Scherban's murder.

Scherban's son, Ruslan Scherban, a member of Donetsk Regional Council, said at a press conference on April 4, 2012 that he had passed to the Prosecutor General's Office documents indicating Tymoshenko's and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko's possible involvement in his father's murder.

Tymoshenko and Lazarenko have categorically denied being involved in the murder.

On January 18, 2013, Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka said at a briefing that the Prosecutor General's Office had finished its investigation into the criminal case on the murder of MP Scherban and that Tymoshenko had been notified of being suspected of having organized the crime, along with Lazarenko. 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 to be killed.

In February-March 2013, three witnesses for the prosecution and one witness for the defense were interrogated in court as part of the pre-trial investigation into the Scherban murder case.

Tymoshenko did not attend either of the court hearings.

On October 11, 2011, Pechersky District Court in Kyiv sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years in prison for overstepping her authority when signing 2009 gas contracts with Russia. She has served her sentence in Kachanivska Penal Colony in Kharkiv since late December 2011. The ex-premier is currently undergoing treatment at a Kharkiv-based hospital.