The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv has received a letter from Ruslan Shcherban, the son of the murdered politician, Yevhen Scherban, regarding the provision of evidence on the murder of his father.
"We have received a letter from Shcherban. We believe that this is a private case, not the one that can be discussed in public," U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Tefft said at a lecture to the students of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv on Thursday, Apr. 19.
The ambassador also noted that the U.S. state prosecutor who dealt with the case of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko said in an interview with Ukrainian media that following an investigation into the case, the U.S. side has no evidence that former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was involved in the contract killing of Shcherban.
As reported, earlier the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine said that it had filed a request to the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine for the provision of information about possible crimes committed by the former head of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) Corporation, Yulia Tymoshenko, and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Lazarenko.
The Prosecutor General’s Office is investigating the possible involvement of Lazarenko and Tymoshenko in the murder of Donetsk businessman Shcherban. Tymoshenko and Lazarenko have categorically denied their involvement in the murder.
In 1996, MP Shcherban was shot dead by a group of people in Donetsk airport upon his arrival from Moscow. As a result, the MP, his wife and a mechanic were killed. A flight engineer later died in hospital from a gunshot wound to the neck.
