Ukraine’s SBU State Security Service is cooperating with Interpol in an international search for the person suspected of organizing the murder of Kherson activist Kateryna Gandziuk. The suspect is Oleksiy Levin, the SBU’s press center said, citing the chief of the SBU’s main investigative department Bohdan Tivodar.
According to Tivodar, SBU investigators have since November 2018 been involved in the case, establishing who ordered the crime, and their pretrial investigation has focused on identifying others who may have ordered Gandziuk’s murder.
Tivodar said the SBU, with procedural guidance from Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO), has collected enough evidence and served suspicion notices to Levin and Kherson Regional Council Head Vladyslav Manher.
As reported, an unidentified person poured concentrated sulfuric acid over Gandziuk in the vicinity of her house in Kherson on July 31. She suffered severe chemical burns and had to be taken to the local hospital. Soon she was transferred to a hospital in Kyiv.
Reports appeared on Nove. 4, 2018 that Gandziuk had died.
Five suspects in the assassination attempt on Gandziuk were detained.
In February 2019, Kyiv’s Shevchenkivsky District Court extended until July 3 the terms of the pretrial investigation of Manher, Donbas war veteran Serhiy Torbin, a deputy to member of parliament Ihor Pavlovsky, and Oleksiy Levin (Moskalenko) for committing a criminal offense stipulated under Part 3 of Article 27 (types of complicity), Paragraphs 4, 6, 11, 12 of Part 2 of Article 115 (premeditated murder) of Ukraine’s Criminal Code.
On May 7, the PGO approved and sent to the court a bill of indictment in criminal proceedings against five persons accused of causing grievous bodily harm that resulted in Gandziuk’s death. On June 6, the Pokrovsky District Court of Dnipropetrovsk Region approved a plea arrangement between investigators and five suspects in the case and sentenced them to imprisonment.
In December 2018, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said that law enforcement authorities had announced suspicion to Levin (Moskalenko) as a participant in the preparation and organization of the attack on Gandziuk. According to him, Levin has a criminal past and fled the country after the crime. In January, the SBU put Levin on the wanted list. According to published information, he disappeared on August 19, 2018.
In August, lawyer Andriy Murashkin said Levin (Moskalenko) was detained in a EU country and released after interrogation, since, according to him, the SBU refused to file documents for his extradition.
