A politically-charged murder case in Ukraine took a bizarre turn today as the suspects in the murder of Valery Oliynik, a 55-year-old unemployed resident of the village of Grushka, in Kirovograd Region, Ukraine, were reported in the Russian and Ukrainian press to have confessed to 15 other murders. That information has been denied by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office.Viktor Lozinsky
The case began on June 16, the day after Oliynik’s death, when the Ukrainian nationalist organization Freedom accused MP Viktor Lozinsky from the Yulia Timoshenko Bloc, district prosecutor Evgeny Gorbenko and local police chief Mikhail Kovalsky of severely beating Oliynik and then shooting him several times, resulting in his death. The group claimed that the three were drunk at the time of the crime.
A Timoshenko Bloc source then issued the following account of the incident to the press: “Lozinsky, the district prosecutor and the police representative were driving in a car at night. When they saw a man run from the road in the direction of the forest, Lozinsky and his companions left the car. At that moment, the fleeing man began to shoot at them. The deputy and his companions took the pistol away from the man, and then he attacked them with a knife. They took the knife away from his as well. In addition, they found another pistol in his possession. After that, the MP, prosecutor and policeman took the disarmed local resident to the police.”
(See Intelligence, Security, and Law Enforcement article posted
June 23,2009.)
In the following week, Lozinsky, who represents the district where Oliynik was killed, gave several accounts of the incident to the press, and stated that Oliynik was taken to a hospital, not the police. Another Timoshenko Bloc legislator, Vladimir Pilipenko, suggested the three men be given awards for bravery in disarming the dangerous man.
On June 23, the media carried a claim by Oliynik’s mother that she was paid 200 hryvnia (about $26) by unknown men and pressured to identify a pistol as her son’s. She said her son did not own any pistols. It was also reported that Oliynik was dead upon arrival at the hospital. According to reports, Oliynik’s body was handcuffed, had nine bullet wounds, an open fracture of one leg, broken ribs and a broken collarbone.
The term “manhunt,” which has been universally applied to the case since it was introduced, seems to have originated with a quotation from a fellow villager of Oliynik, identified only as Alexey. “They saw a guy wandering near his [Lozinsky’s] land,” Alexey suggested. “And they decided to teach him a lesson and chase him across the field like a rabbit.” Lozinsky owns property in the area that he uses for hunting.
Gorbenko and Kovalsky were taken into custody. The Ukrainian parliament set up an investigatory commission. The local governor and district head were dismissed. On Monday, Lozinsky asked that his immunity as an MP be lifted, as it was a “speculative factor” in the case.
Today, besides the announcement and denial that Gorbenko and Kovalsky had confessed to 15 more murders, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office initiated a criminal case against Lozinsky for causing grievous bodily harm. If Lozinsky is brought to trial and found guilty of that charge, he faces seven to ten years in prison.
Source: MosNews.com
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