You're reading: Turchynov: Real killers of Scherban must be found

First Deputy Chairman of the Batkivschyna Party Oleksandr Turchynov has stated that the people who ordered the killing of MP Yevhen Scherban must be found. Meanwhile, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine (PGO) is investigating into possible involvement of former Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko into the case.

"It’s very important to find the people that ordered the killing, and the killers of Yevhen Scherban. The leader of the gang, also known as Kushnir, was killed in 1998 in a Donetsk-based prison – that’s where the main witness was killed. And now they are drawing up evidence based on memories that someone told something to somebody else, and using these forged documents they are trying to falsify the case. It is clear why Kushnir was killed in prison, they wanted to conceal the truth about the real customers of the murder. Customers can be discovered very easily. We should just check who appropriated Scherban’s property, who took control over his business, and everything becomes clear, there people are sitting in the parliament or holding very serious and responsible positions, all traces lead directly to the Regions Party," Turchynov said in an interview with Ukrainian television’s Channel 5 on April 7.

Turchynov also said the PGO would propose certain agreements to Russian national Vadim Bolotskikh, who was imprisoned for life for killing Scherban, to give the evidence its needs on the case.

"Sources say that the PGO is working with the only alive witness in this case, Bolotskikh, who is serving his life sentence in prison, to make him invent and add some facts. What are they offering him? They could promise him to replace life imprisonment with something else. This is being done in a very clumsy and cynical way, but they believe that they will get away with it, as the courts and police are under their control," Turchynov said.

As reported, on April 6 Vadim Bolotskikh was transferred from a colony in Luhansk region to a detention facility in Kyiv, according to the press service of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine.

In April 2003 Bolotskikh was sentenced to life imprisonment and confiscation of property for killing MP Yevhen Scherban.

Bolotskikh was also convicted for the murder of Danko Company President Oleksandr Mamot and organization of a blast at the Sharkhtar Stadium in Donetsk in 1995, in which President of FC Shakhtar and Head of the Lux Firm Ahat Bragin was killed.

In 1996 MP Scherban was shot dead by a group of people in Donetsk airport upon his arrival from Moscow. As a result, the MP, his wife and mechanic died. A flight engineer died in a hospital due to a gunshot wound to the neck.

An explosion occurred in 1995 at the Shakhtar stadium during a football match between Shakhtar (Donetsk) and Tavria (Simferopol), killing the president of the Shakhtar football club, Ahat Bragin, and five bodyguards.

At a press conference on April 4, Scherban’s son, Yevhen, said that he had passed to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine documents on the possible involvement of former Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko and former Ukrainian Premier Pavlo Lazarenko in the murder of his father.

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