KYIV. Jan 23 (Interfax) - Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was mentioned in the context of her possible involvement in organizing parliamentarian Yevhen Shcherban's murder in testimony provided by his killers more than ten years ago, former Ukrainian Deputy Prosecutor General Mykola Obikhod said.
"It is worth knowing this theme better. A group of hit men who killed Shcherban were tried in Luhansk. The proceedings started in 2002 and lasted for a year. Testimony by Mr. Petro Kyrychenko, an advisor to ex-Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, was announced at these proceedings. He testified on the circumstances in which he transferred money from accounts he managed to personal accounts belonging to one Sailor, the currently well-known Oleksandr Milchenko [a criminal boss in Dnipropetrovsk]. So this testimony is also contained in the sentence by the Luhansk Court of Appeals, which heard the killers' case in 2003. It says openly with reference to the testimony that Yulia would pay. Therefore it would be wrong to say that Tymoshenko was never mentioned," Obikhod told Interfax.
Hence, the investigation possessed information implicating Tymoshenko in the organization of Shcherban's murder back in 2002, but it needed more time to collect more information and proof, Obikhod said.
"Investigations take time. You can't just press a button and receive proof out of nowhere. It was necessary to find certain accounts, then verify where the money came from. Sometimes it takes a couple of months and sometimes decades to solve a crime. That is, this is about methodical work. The necessary information had simply to be collected," he said.
Interfax reported in February 2002 with reference to Obikhod, who was then deputy prosecutor general, that $850,000 and $2 million was transferred from ex-Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko's personal accounts to an account belonging to a criminal boss for the murders of parliamentarians Shcherban and Vadym Hetman.