Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has said that Russian citizen Vladimir Tyurin, who is suspected of killing former State Duma deputy Denis Voronenkov in Kyiv, could be convicted in absentia.
“The law clearly provides for an algorithm of action and conviction in absentia is possible, but this requires a number of actions, in particular, placing [Tyurin] on the state wanted list and then on the interstate wanted list. A certain period should pass after such a decision, so I do not exclude his conviction in absentia, but I expect his conviction ‘in presence,'” Lutsenko told journalists in Kyiv on March 14, when asked whether conviction in absentia is possible.
At the same time, he added: “The answer is quite obvious whether Moscow extradites Tyurin… In addition to legal action, we always count on operational success, in this case as well.”
According to earlier reports, Voronenkov was killed in central Kyiv on March 23, 2017. The assassin, Pavlo Parshov, was wounded by the former deputy’s security guard and later died at a hospital.
Voronenkov’s assassin had an accomplice, Yaroslav Levenets, who has been wanted for economic crimes since 2012. Yaroslav Tarasenko is also a suspect in the crime. He was detained on July 16.
In October 2017, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said that two persons involved in the case – Oleksandr Los and Yaroslav Tarasenko – had been arrested and are in jail; and two more are on the wanted list, particularly Yaroslav Levenets and Yuriy Vasylenko, the leader of a criminal group.
He also said that Voronenkov’s murder had been ordered by a criminal boss controlled by the Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB), Vladimir Tyurin, who is also the former common-law partner of Voronenkov’s widow Maria Maksakova.
