Dozens of journalists of the local Nadrossia newspaper in Cherkasy Oblast gathered on the morning of April 8 to mourn their colleague Vasyl Serhiyenko, whose mutilated body was found in a forest some 150 kilometers outside Kyiv on April 5.
Serhiyenko, 58 was a nationalist Svoboda Party member
and an activist of the EuroMaidan Revolution, who spent most of his time on journalistic investigations in Korsun-Shevchenkivsky in Cherkasy Oblast.
Police have announced no arrests in the murder of Serhiyenko, who was abducted at about 8:30 p.m. on April 4 from his house in Korsun-Shevchenkivsky by three men who beat him, Svoboda Party reported. Then they pushed him to a white Lada car and drove away. Serhiyenko’s neighbors saw the same car near his house several times before that.
The Svoboda Party press service said Serhiyenko was found with stab wounds and signs of beating to his head and knees. “The signs of tortures on his body are evident,” Oleh Sobchenko, one of the leaders of local self-defense unit was quoted as saying.
Cherkasy city prosecutor Viktor Mykolenko said investigators are trying to identify suspects.
However, Yury Syrotiuk, lawmaker and Svoboda’s spokesman, said the party members don’t believe local prosecutor’s office will investigate the case objectively.
“I spoke to Svoboda activists in Cherkasy Oblast and they are unsure the prosecutor will come up with fair investigation. That’s why we want to pass this case to general prosecutor’s office in Kyiv,” Syrotiuk told the Kyiv Post.
Serhiyenko was receiving death threats for more than a week before his kidnapping and murder. The threats were also going to the local head of Svoboda Party, Volodymyr Zuyenko, and the members of local self-defense units.
Serhiyenko’s party fellows say the murder was politically motivated. Syrotiuk told the Kyiv Post that he suspects that the victim was killed because of his journalistic investigations of Hennady Bobov, one of the former ruling Party of Regions lawmaker. Repeated attempts to reach Bobov were not successful.
Syrotiuk recalls “Serhiyenko was a very calm and non-confrontational man.”
“He was looking after his old mother in Korsun-Shevchenkivsky,” Syrotiuk explained. “The only thing that he was doing and that could provoke some anger was his series of investigations about the scams of deputy of Party of Regions’ Bobov. That was a very savage killing.”
Serhiyenko also published a number of articles focused on Serhiy Tulub, the head of the Cherkasy Oblast administration, who is on Ukraine’s and international wanted lists for embezzlement of state property.
Syrotiuk said that Svoboda had a long-standing confrontation with representatives of the Party of Regions in Cherkasy Oblast. In the last week, three Svoboda activists were attacked.
“We miss one of our fellows now and we guess someone merely doesn’t want us to continue our job – because we control the government,” Sobchenko, one of the leaders of local self-defense unit, said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]
