The General Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that “a well-known businessman” was informed that he was suspected of “committing another crime related to the organization of contract murder.”
Ukrainian media have identified the suspect as 61-year-old Igor Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine’s richest men and a former supporter of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
V. Zelensky has long been associated with I. Kolomoisky, his media empire aired the series “Servant of the Nation” with V. Zelensky and supported his campaign. After Russia invaded in 2022, V. Zelensky promised to fight corruption, in September I. Kolomoisky was arrested on suspicion of fraud and money laundering.
Describing the latest charge, prosecutors said that “the suspect, acting out of personal vendetta, ordered the killing of the law firm’s director” because he failed to comply with an order to invalidate the decisions of the company’s shareholders.
According to prosecutors, the suspect hired members of “a gang that ‘specializes’ in committing serious and particularly serious crimes and uses physical violence against rivals.” The gang “attacked the law firm director, punching and stabbing him in his vital organs” but did not kill him “for reasons beyond the control of the gang members,” prosecutors said.
Ukrainian police issued a separate statement saying the attack took place in 2003. In the city of Feodosia on the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014.
in 2021 The US banned I. Kolomoiskiis and his family from entering the country, the State Department said that he was involved in corruption when in 2014-2015. was the governor of the eastern Dnipro region.
Previously, I. Kolomoisky was the owner of Privatbank, the largest private bank in Ukraine, he was accused of embezzling billions of dollars, the bank was nationalized.
