KYIV, May 19 – Ukrainian prosecutors said Friday that agents have seized a former member of an elite army unit suspected of shooting to death prominent Ukrainian legislator Yevhen Shcherban in 1996.
Shcherban, reportedly one of Ukraine's wealthiest businessmen, was gunned down in the coal capital of Donetsk.
Deputy chief prosecutor Mykola Obykhod said the suspect, whom he did not name, was detained Thursday and was the only one who survived from among a group of five Russians and Ukrainians who carried out the killing.
He said the rest have since been killed in order to silence them, as were intermediaries who helped arrange the contract slaying.
Obykhod declined to name the people suspected of ordering the killing, saying only that 'their motive was to get rid of a rival in their economic and political activities.'
