You're reading: Alleged gangster shot dead near Kyiv court

The shooting occurred at 4:40 p.m. as he was being escorted from the courtroom to a police transport vehicle.

A controversial Russian businessman who openly backed Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych’s failed bid for the presidency in 2004 was gunned down by a sniper on March 27 while being escorted out of a Kyiv court by police.

Maksim Kurochkin, a reputed Moscow gang leader being held by Ukrainian authorities on extortion charges, was shot once in the heart by an unidentified gunman minutes after Kyiv’s Svyatoshyn district court had turned down his plea to be released on bail.

Kurochkin, 38, begged Kyiv judges to release him from custody, saying that a contract had been placed on his life. He pleaded for better police protection or to be given the chance to protect himself. “I do not want to die. I want to live,” Kurochkin was shown saying on Ukrainian national television.

The shooting occurred at 4:40 p.m. as he was being escorted from the courtroom to a police transport vehicle that was to shuttle him to a remand center, where he had been held since last November. Neither Kurochkin nor his police escorts were wearing bulletproof vests.

One policeman who was escorting Kurochkin was injured in the gunfire but survived.

Police said the sniper was stationed in the attic of a building located 300 meters away, escaping in a silver Mazda that was found in downtown Kyiv hours later.

The sniper, who had an accomplice, used a special foreign-made rifle, and both wore dark masks, according to police.

As the Post went to press, suspicions were already circulating in the media that Kurochkin’s murder had been facilitated by the police or even staged.

At a press conference on March 28, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said Kurochkin wasn’t wearing a bullet-proof vest because a court hadn’t ordered it.

Interior Ministry spokesman Kostyantyn Stohniy said that Kurochkin himself had never requested tighter security from the court in writing.

As the Post went to press on March 28, the police had yet to provide any physical evidence of Kurochkin’s death.

Maksym Kupyansky, deputy minister of internal affairs and head of Ukraine’s criminal police department, told journalists on March 28 that the body was immediately sent to the morgue.

He denied any conspiracy.

“There would be no criminal case opened without a dead body, without the fact of a murder. There is a coroner’s conclusion. That is really Kurochkin’s body.”

Kupyansky, however, declined to disclose the coroner’s name or show journalists Kurochkin’s corpse.

Maksim Kurochkin, a Moscow businessman and reputed gangster, was shot dead by a sniper minutes after a judge turned down his request to be freed on bail at a court hearing on March 27, when this photograph was taken. (UNIAN)

Kupyansky said that Kurochkin was guarded by 18 policemen, including members of special court guards.

In Ukraine, prisoners are usually escorted by three guards on their way and back to court. The car that was to shuttle Kurochkin from the court couldn’t drive up to the entrance of the court building due to construction works started last year, according to Kupyansky.

One of the leads being pursued by investigators is that Kurochkin was murdered in connection with a business conflict in Russia.

The murder occurred days after three associates of Kurochkin were gunned down just outside Ukraine’s capital. The three allegedly represented the interests of Kurochkin at a disputed open-air market in Dnipropetrovsk.

Kurochkin has been linked to several high-profile investments in Ukraine, including a luxury hotel business that controls Kyiv’s five-star Premier Palace, energy companies and the market in Dnipropetrovsk. Kurochkin was detained on extortion charges last November at Boryspil International Airport and has been held in custody awaiting trial ever since.

During the 2004 presidential election campaign, Kurochkin served as director of the Russian Club, a Kyiv-based think tank composed of Russian political consultants and pundits who backed Yanukovych’s fraud-marred presidential bid over that of Viktor Yushchenko, the pro-Western candidate. Yushchenko was propelled to the presidency by massive protests against election fraud that initially pointed to Yanukovych as the winner of the heated contest.

Kurochkin narrowly escaped an assassination attempt on his life in Kyiv during the heated 2004 presidential elections when his car was bombed.

Ukrainian and Russian news media have connected his business interests in the past with Russian Duma deputy Alexander Babakov, a high-ranking member of Russia’s Rodina party who allegedly controls Moscow’s CSKA soccer team along with other partners.

Living in a gangster’s paradise?

Opposition leaders in Ukraine rushed to label the murder of Kurochkin as severely damaging to Ukraine’s reputation, saying it will raise questions about the country’s ability to protect witnesses and accused criminals held in custody. Investors and civil-rights activists have in recent months complained that the ability to defend their interests in Ukraine’s corrupt court system has deteriorated amid a void in leadership and the slow pace of judicial reforms. Political pundits said the assassination of Kurochkin would add fuel to the fire, raising doubt about the ability of Ukraine’s divided leadership to mete out justice.

In a statement, the parliamentary faction of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko said the murder is another signal that the country’s current leadership was unable to maintain the rule of law in the country. The bloc of Tymoshenko, a firebrand Orange Revolution hero with a reputation as a political radical and anti-corruption combatant, chastised Ukraine’s leadership for their inability to solve high-profile crimes committed in the past and to protect citizens.

Tymoshenko’s Byut bloc said: “The killing of businessmen, questionable suicides, and unsolved high-profile crimes all give grounds to say that Ukraine is returning to the early 1990s, when the majority of conflicts in business were settled with arms.”

Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Viktor Chernomyrdin urged officials in Ukraine to solve the killing of Kurochkin, a Russian citizen.

“This is unprecedented … if they are now killing in the courts,” he said.

Activists and politicians called for Ukraine’s divided leadership – the increasingly marginalized president, Viktor Yushchenko, and his nemesis from the Orange Revolution, Yanukovych – to take immediate measures aimed at strengthening the operations of law enforcement and the judiciary.

Yushchenko’s chief of staff, Viktor Baloha, issued a strong statement late on March 27 that appeared to point the blame at Yanukovych.

“Today’s contract killing of Maksim Kurochkin once again confirms that criminal elements in our country are feeling freer and acting more brash,” Baloha said.

On March 28, Yanukovych ordered Ukraine’s Interior Ministry to prepare an audit of unsolved contract killings and to boost efforts to crack the mounting number of unsolved cases.