You're reading: Slow investigation after fast predestrian death

A former Kyiv mayor runs down a pedestrian at a crosswalk; investigation will likely last until until March.

It had been a normal Wednesday evening for Svitlana Tetyusheva when her common-law husband, Oleksandr Karpinskiy, called to say: “I’ll be home soon.” But he didn’t arrive, and when Tetyusheva finally got through to his phone at 2 a.m., an unknown voice told her he’d been run over.

Karpinskiy had been hit by a car driven by Oleksandr Omelchenko, a Verkhovna Rada deputy and former mayor of Kyiv. The 48-year-old victim died at the scene.

According to a written statement by Omelchenko given to traffic police, he was travelling at 70 kilometers per hour – less than the 80 kilometer per hour limit. He was not far from the Vita-2 bus stop at about 9:20 p.m. on Nov. 25. He was driving his Mitsubishi Pajero from Koncha Zaspa in the direction of Kyiv, and hit a pedestrian who suddenly appeared from between a line of cars going in the other direction, 40 meters from the zebra crossing.

Some eyewitnesses, however, told local newspapers that Karpinskiy was on the zebra-stripe crossing and that Omelchenko was traveling at a high rate of speed.

Photographs from the scene of the accident show what appears to be Karpinskiy’s hat on the crossing. Dr. Roy Smith, a collision analysis expert at De Montfort University in the United Kingdom, said that the position of the hat on the crossing wasn’t conclusive, but was “not inconsistent” with him being on the crossing. “It’s more likely that he was on the crossing than not,” he said.

One pensioner, who lives meters from where the accident happened, said that the crossing was dangerous. “People live on both sides of the road, and it’s frightening to cross,” he said. “Cars come flying past and, even if one stops to let someone across, the one behind darts out to overtake him.” He added that there had been a number of accidents on this stretch of road.

It’s not the first time that Stolychne Shosse has seen a traffic accident involving a top politician. The road leads to the elite residential area of Koncha Zaspa. Not far from the spot where Karpinskiy was killed, a pedestrian was run over by Leonid Chernovetsky in November 2003, who was then a parliamentary deputy and now is mayor of Kyiv.

Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, a former member of parliament’s Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense faction – which Omelchenko belongs to – told reporters on Nov. 26 that an investigation had begun, but was likely to take until March, given the approaching holiday season. He added that at this stage he could confirm only that Omelchenko was sober and traveling at 70 kilometers per hour at the time of the accident.

The widow is not hopeful about the criminal investigation. “Maybe in [the United Kingdom and the United States] the law is the same for everyone, but not in Ukraine,” Tetyusheva told the Kyiv Post. “We have different laws for the rich and powerful.’’

Omelchenko has made no public comment since the accident. His aides told the Kyiv Post that they had no comment. His office said the 73-year-old had been hospitalized since the incident. An aide to Omelchenko gave Tetyusheva Hr 5,000, she said, but the deputy had not spoken with her personally. Karpinskiy’s father and son from his first marriage received Hr 20,000 from Omelchenko to pay for the funeral.

Karpinskiy and Tetyusheva had lived together for 10 years, and moved to Kyiv three years ago after the death of his daughter from a previous marriage.

She said that Karpinskiy’s other relatives had taken the money and come to an agreement with Omelchenko not to stir up a fuss. Karpinskiy’s father, Mykola, refused to comment when contacted by telephone. He told Gazeta po-Kievski on Dec. 1 that he did not want to see Omelchenko in jail as he was behaving kindly toward the family, paying for the funeral and promising to support the family.

But Tetyusheva said she was going to pursue a civil suit against Omelchenko. “I have nothing to lose now. I’m not frightened of speaking out. I have lost my dear husband,” she said by telephone from Kirovhrad Oblast, where her husband has been buried.