The Golosiivsky District Court of Kyiv has arrested a suspect linked to the assassination of former Russian lawmaker Denis Voronenkov. He will be held for two months without bail, according to Nadiya Maksymets, the press secretary of Kyiv prosecutor’s office.
Voronenkov, an ex-member of the Russian parliament (State Duma) who fled the country and became an open critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was gunned down on March 23 outside the Premier Palace hotel in Kyiv.
Maksymets said that a 36-year-old Ukrainian from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, whom the police arrested on June 16, is accused of a murder committed by a group of people with a premeditated agreement.
Neither the police nor the court revealed the name of a suspect.
“The prosecutor noted that this man is also charged with another criminal case that is under consideration of the Novomoskovsk District Court of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, where he is accused of a series of violent crimes involving a firearm,” says Maksymets.
Some of the prosecutor’s arguments in favor of arresting the suspect without bail until trial included a high possibility of him threatening witnesses, hiding from the police, and distorting evidence.
Thus, the suspect will remain arrested until Aug. 13.
According to the official police version, a 28-year-old Pavlo Parshov, who shot Voronenkov, was a secret Russian agent who passed himself off as a Ukrainian soldier. The killer died in the hospital after being shot by Voronenkov’s wounded bodyguard.
Voronenkov was on the Russian federal wanted list; accused of large-scale fraud.
In Ukraine, according to Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, Voronenkov was testifying against Ukraine’s ex-President Viktor Yanukovych accused of high treason.
Lutsenko presented the assassination as a sign of the investigation’s success.
