Police identify suspect in killing security guards in Kyiv's Karavan

The police have identified a man suspected of shooting dead three employees of private security companies in the Karavan shopping mall in Kyiv, Interior Minister of Ukraine Vitaliy Zakharchenko has told journalists on Thursday.

"There is a person suspected of committing this crime, and we have every reason to think that this person committed the crime. We're working on the case. We're taking special measures to detain this person," the minister said.

The minister also said that the police have obtained a video record of the events at the scene of the crime from the shopping mall. He added that, according to experts' conclusions, the suspect used an unusual gun that looks like Makarov pistol. In particular, the police found on the scene of the crime a self-made device for collecting bullet cases, which was attached to the gun and dropped during the shooting.

In turn, Head of the Public Liaisons Department of the Interior Ministry Volodymyr Polischuk said that the suspect is a Kyiv resident born in 1986.

"We know his full name. We are carrying out operations to find and detail him," he said.

Zakharchenko added that if policemen, instead of private security guards had worked at the shopping mall they would have search the suspected first to check whether he had any dangerous things, and only after that they would carry out further actions to find the stolen goods.

The minister added that the Interior Ministry would most likely form a working group to amend the legislation that regulates activities of private security companies in order to prevent such incidents in future.

As reported, the robber shot dead three employees of a private security firm and seriously wounded another one in the Karavan shopping mall in Kyiv on Wednesday afternoon. One of the security guards saw a visitor stealing a USB flash drive from a glass case. The guard asked the man to go to the back room, where other guards were waiting. In the room the man pulled out a gun and started shooting, killing three security guards on the spot and seriously wounding a fourth one. The attacker then fled the scene.

The Obolon District Police Office has opened a criminal case on the incident.

According to the Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukraine newspaper, the killer came to the cash desk with a loaf of bread in his hand. When the security guards took him to the room he suddenly took out the gun and started shooting, after which he left the shopping mall with the loaf of bread.

Karavan's security service chief was among the men shot dead by the robber, reads the newspaper. Executive Director of Karavan Serhiy Kyslenko promised Hr 100,000 for assistance in finding the criminal.

The article also reads that, according to some employees of the shopping mall, the stealing of the USB flash drive was just a pretense, and it was not a spontaneous shooting, but a planned murder by an experienced gunman.