The Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, announced it is investigating possible police neglect in a flagrant case that shook Ukraine last year – the murder of activist Kateryna Gandziuk.
Bohdan Tyvodar, the chief of the SBU’s Main Investigation Department, and his deputy Vitaliy Maiakov announced that they are holding proceedings during a roundtable with media and activists on Nov. 3.
The officials said the SBU has identified a number of individuals who might have been involved in ordering the murder and promised to give updates on the investigation.
The news comes a year after Gandziuk’s death. On Nov. 4, activists will hold demonstrations in 40 cities to mark the anniversary and demand justice in the case.
Gandziuk was an anti-corruption activist and a whistleblowing Kherson municipal official who worked as an adviser to the mayor of Kherson, a city of 289,000 located 550 kilometers south of Kyiv.
She was attacked with sulfuric acid at the age of 33 in her hometown of Kherson in July 2018 and died three agonizing months later in a Kyiv hospital.
Gandziuk’s murder unsettled the country, sparking large protests and the foundation of a movement “Who killed Katya Gandziuk?” which has named several Kherson officials as potentially behind the murder.
Gandziuk herself believed that the attack was connected to her efforts to expose corruption in Kherson city and oblast.
Read also: Getting away with murder: The Kateryna Gandziuk case
The SBU took over the neglect case on Oct. 30, stating that the officers who led the investigation for the first three months after the attack could have neglected their duty.
Gandziuk refused to cooperate with Kherson police, suspecting they could be connected to the attack, but testified to the Kyiv investigators.
The officers originally classified the attack as hooliganism, but following public outrage changed it to “intentional injury with the purpose of intimidation” and later to an “assassination attempt.” After Gandziuk died, the police reclassified the case as a contract killing.
Police arrested their first suspect in August, Mykola Novikov, who was widely believed to be a scapegoat and was released soon after an investigation by the Ukrainska Pravda online newspaper confirmed his alibi.
Suspects
Law enforcement managed to bring those who carried out the attack to court in June, and five former volunteer Ukrainian military fighters received jail sentences between three to six and a half years. However, the authorities haven’t found those who ordered the murder.
The SBU officials say they are investigating Gandziuk’s murder in five criminal proceedings.
“The SBU is considering all versions that could have led to an attack on Kateryna, primarily related to the accusations of abuse she made about the oblast officials,” Tyvodar said.
The SBU representatives said they have identified a number of individuals who could have ordered the murder and have been involved in organizing it. One of them is Vladyslav Manger, a powerful Kherson Oblast official.
Gandziuk herself suspected Manger, who may have targeted her after she and her friend published an investigation about Manger’s corruption and criminal ties. The official denies the allegations.
Prosecutors charged Manger with ordering the murder in February but changed the charges to “ordering the infliction of serious injuries” two months later. In August, prosecutors failed to extend his case before it expired and halted it soon after.
Former aide to Kherson Oblast lawmaker Mykola Stavytsky, Oleksiy Levin, earlier convicted of another murder, is also a suspect. Levin fled Ukraine after the attack. Only ten months later, he was charged.
The SBU officials say they are cooperating with foreign law enforcement to find Levin, who is now on Interpol’s international wanted list.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, the SBU officials said that relatives of suspects have been paid to silence. The service acquired evidence that Levin was behind the payments.
Another suspect is Ihor Pavlovsky, a well-connected Kherson businessman and an aide to lawmaker Mykola Palamarchuk. His charges had been changed from organizing the murder to concealing it.
Pavlovsky was arrested in November 2018, held in jail until April and then was transferred to house arrest until it expired in July, when the investigation about his possible involvement in the murder was completed.
The next hearing about Pavlovsky is set for Nov. 5 in Odesa.
“We hope that he will show up to the court so that it can make a lawful decision,” Tyvodar said.
The activists in the “Who killed Katya Gandziuk?” movement had earlier identified Pavlovsky as an alleged intermediary in the murder, which he denies.
The activists also earlier named two more suspects — Andriy Gordeev, then Kherson Oblast governor, and Yevhen Ryshchuk, then Gordeev’s deputy. Both of them deny wrongdoing.
