The police have arrested a suspect in the murder of human rights activist and lawyer Iryna Nozdrovska, first deputy interior minister Serhiy Yarovy announced on Jan.8.
Nozdrovska, a 38-year old attorney who fought for the imprisonment of a drunk driver who killed her sister, was found dead in a river by the village of Demydove in Kyiv Oblast on Jan. 1. She had been receiving death threats before her Dec. 29 disappearance and murder.
Her death caused hundreds of people to rally on Jan. 2 in Kyiv, with demands to find the killers.
Yarovy said during a meeting with the two other police officials that the police found “a well-founded suspect of the murder” and arrested him, according to a report published on the website of the Interior Ministry.
He didn’t provide any details about the suspect.
Vyacheslav Abroskin, the first deputy head of the national police, said during the meeting that the police managed to reconstruct Nozdrovska’s travel from Kyiv to her home in Demydove on Dec. 29, the day she went missing. Police detectives also questioned six bus drivers traveling that way and more than 1,000 residents of the village.
Nozdrovska pursued justice for more than two years after her 26-year-old sister Svitlana Sepatinska, was killed on Sept. 30, 2015 by a car driven by Dmytro Rososhanskiy, the nephew of the then-head of the Vyshhorod District Court. Rososhanskiy, who was found drunk during the accident, was later sentenced to seven years in prison.
Nozdrovska had allegedly received threats from Rososhanskiy and his family. Ukrainian news website Ukrainska Pravda reported that the suspect is a relative of Rososhanskiy’s.
Nozdrovska went missing on the day after the Kyiv Oblast Court of Appeal rejected Rososhanskiy’s appeal for unconditional release.
Ukrainska Pravda website reported based on its sources that a suspect is Rososhanskiy’s close relative.
