Kyiv’s Shevchenkivsky District Court has reduced bail for Kherson Regional Council head Vladyslav Manher, the suspect in the murder of activist Kateryna Gandziuk, from Hr 2.5 million to slightly more than Hr 1 million, the Kyiv-based Slidstvo.Info ezine has said.
The court at the meeting on Nov. 25 partially granted the motion of Manher’s lawyers. They asked to lower the amount of the bail to Hr 148,000 in connection with the re-qualification of the case from ordering the murder to causing serious bodily harm.
In his application, Manher’s lawyer Dmytro Ilchenko requested bail be reduced by almost 17 times. However, representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) objected. The court appointed a new pledge in the amount of Hr 1.15 million.
As reported, on July 31, 2018, an unidentified person doused activist Kateryna Gandziuk with concentrated sulfuric acid near her house in Kherson. She was taken to Kyiv for hospital treatment and died on Nov. 4, 2018.
Five suspects, including a man identified by a video surveillance camera as the buyer of the acid, were detained.
In February, 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.
On Oct. 22, Riaboshapka promised to show results of the investigation into the Gandziuk murder case in several months.
On Nov. 3, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported that it was investigating into possible involvement of police employees into assistance to Oleksiy Levin, who organized the attack on Gandziuk, while leaving abroad. The SBU also said that Levin’s location has not been detected yet and that there were some other instigators besides Manher.
