A Kyiv court has sentenced a Ukrainian businessperson to prison for plotting the murder of Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko.
Borys German, who was detained as part of a shocking special operation in May that involved faking Babchenko’s death, received 4.5 years behind bars, Vasyl Hrytsak, the chief of the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, told journalists on Sep. 1.
The verdict will come into force in a month.
“German pleaded guilty and cooperated with the investigators,” Hrytsak said.
On May 29, Russian war correspondent and Kremlin critic Arkady Babchenko was reported to have been found dead in his Kyiv apartment. However, the next day, he appeared alive at a briefing at the SBU headquarters.
Babchenko said he had to team up with law enforcement and stage his own murder in order to catch the organizer of a real attempt on his life. The suspect was identified as a Ukrainian citizen allegedly paid $40,000 by Russia to hire an assassin to kill Babchenko.
On May 31, the SBU arrested the suspected organizer: Borys German, 50, a former aide to ex-Party of Regions lawmaker Ihor Plokhhiy and acting director of Schmeiser, a Ukrainian-German private arms production company that won many contracts with the Defense Ministry of Ukraine.
Babchenko did not express a strong reaction to the verdict on the person who plotted his murder. In a phone conversation with the Kyiv Post, he said, “I don’t care about his prison term. If he cooperated with the investigation and provided a lot of useful information, they can even set him free.”
Babchenko also said he did not have further interactions with law enforcement on this case and, as far as he knew, there had been sufficient evidence proving German’s guilt. He is still under the protection of SBU guards.
Answering the question of whether he felt safer now, he said “I’m still their target and will be for a long time.”
