Murdered 38-year-old lawyer Iryna Nozdrovska, a human rights activist and lawyer, was stabbed multiple times around her face and neck.
She was found dead in a river near Kyiv Oblast’s Demydove village on Jan. 1 after receiving death threats during the last two years of pursuing justice for her slain sister Svitlana Sepatinska.
Sepatinska died at the age of 26 as she was struck and killed on Sept. 30, 2015 by a car driven under the influence of alcohol by Dmytro Rososhanskiy, the nephew of the then-head of the Vyshgorod District Court.
Rososhanskiy was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, but his appeal for freedom under an amnesty law was heard in court on Dec. 27.
Nozdrovska went missing on Dec. 29, the day after the Kyiv Oblast Court of Appeal rejected Rososhanskiy’s appeal for freedom. “The court didn’t satisfy his defender’s claim,” wrote Nozdrovska on her Facebook page. “The killer of my sister will celebrate New Year’s behind bars.”
Nozdrovska had allegedly received threats from Rososhanskiy and his family.
Lawmaker Mustafa Nayyem wrote on his Facebook page on Jan. 1 that Rososhanskiy’s father was openly threatening Nozdrovska during the court session, saying she would “end up badly.”
On Jan. 2 hundreds of people, including human rights advocates and lawyers, rallied near the headquarters of the National Police of Ukraine on Volodymyrska Street to demand justice.
Kyiv Oblast’s National Police reported that although the final cause of death is not determined, preliminary autopsy examination results show that she was stabbed multiple times.
The National Police Head of Press Service, Mykola Zhukovich, says there are no suspects yet, but they are working on the investigation.
“The theory about her being raped has been dropped since the expertise shows that she wasn’t,” he said. “But she had multiple stabs on her chin and neck so she was definitely murdered.”
Zhukovich promised to introduce the final results of the investigation on Jan. 5.
Activists as well as Nozdrovska’s friends Lidia Goncharenko and Mykhailo Kovalchuk were the ones who initiated the rally near the National Police of Ukraine’s headquarters on Volodymyrska Street on Jan. 2.
Goncharenko says Nozdrovska’s case has been subject to close examination and that Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko is receiving hourly updates on it. Kovalchuk added that police officers are optimistic about the investigation and it is a question of time before they find the killer(s).
“Iryna had many enemies because she advocated the truth,” Kovalchuk says. “Her family, including her 18-year-old daughter, feel terrible – I hope the investigative unit will work through all possible versions on who did it.”
