PGO stops investigation into Scherban murder case, says Tymoshenko's defense counsel Vlasenko
The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine has stopped the investigation into the killing of MP Yevhen Scherban in 1996, in which former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is charged with organizing the lawmaker's murder, the ex-premier's defense counsel, Serhiy Vlasenko, has said.
"On April 26, the General Prosecutor's Office stopped the investigation into the Scherban case," Vlasenko said at a press conference on Monday.
The defense counsel showed a relevant letter of the Prosecutor General's Office and the investigator's order.
"This is further confirmation of what the defense team has always said – the Scherban case is non-existent," Vlasenko said.
He said that the letter was handed to Tymoshenko on May 7.
According to Vlasenko, the pre-trial investigation into this case was stopped after relevant appeals in the framework of international cooperation were made. However, he did not specify the appeals in question.
Interfax-Ukraine has not yet managed to get any comments from the Prosecutor General's Office.
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.
Pechersky District Court of Kyiv is currently holding questioning of witnesses 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.