The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine reports that Luhansk oblast prosecution offices are conducting investigation in connection with a criminal proceeding over the violent murder of a married couple in front of their underage daughter. Information on this criminal event has been filed with the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations, with charges under Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (intentional homicide of two or more persons perpetrated by a group acting in prior conspiracy).
It has been determined that, on May 9, terrorists have brutally gunned down husband and wife couple who were traveling in two separate vehicles. The victims were local private entrepreneurs. Their bodies with numerous gunshot wounds were located by law enforcement officers on a roadway near the town of Sverdlovsk.
Additionally, the couple’s child, with a gunshot wound to the head, was located in one of the vehicles; she is currently at an intensive care unit of a local hospital. 5.45 mm-caliber bullet casings were discovered during the crime scene investigation.
Donetsk journalist and chief editor of a local news outlet, Sergiy Garmash, reported some additional details about the slain couple on his Facebook page: “The scary news: the string of murders has started in town. Everyone who is wealthy (shop and company owners, businessmen), everyone who had crossed the mayor’s path, who creates business competition to him or his cronies, everyone who believes that our city authorities have been lying and stealing too much – city authorities have declared them the Right Sector. A family from Antratsyt has been gunned down near the village of Novobobrivtsi. Husband and wife are dead, their young child is in critical condition. They sold everything they owned in Antratsyt and were trying to flee from persecution. Someone from Antratsyt radioed the ‘people’s militia’ that the Right Sector cars are approaching. Terrorists started shooting to kill at the vehicles – ironically, these were two SUVs, black and red color. When the terrorists approached to take away the money (they knew that the businessman was carrying a large sum of money), they heard a child cry from inside a vehicle. Fighters against the Right Sector got so scared – they did not expect to become a child’s murderers – that they discarded the entire loot. Reportedly, they even called the ambulance. Also, four of the injured were brought to Antratsyt (a terrorist stronghold now, just like Sloviansk) under guard. While shooting the car, terrorists injured some of their own.”
Additionally, the Prosecutor General’s Office reported that, on Thursday, May 8, terrorists who were “coordinated by an external aggressor” gunned down a 44-year-old local Orthodox priest at an exit checkpoint in the town of Druzhkivka, Donetsk oblast.
“Savages have fired 8 bullets from an automatic weapon into the reverend”, noted the agency. Police authorities have also launched a pretrial investigation over the murder, under direction of the local prosecution offices.
Journalist Sergiy Garmash tweeted that the priest lived near the separatists’ checkpoint and came out of his house in an attempt to talk some sense into them. Father Pavlo was reportedly the dean of a Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox church in Alekseevo-Druzhkivka. However, the spokesperson of Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) Georgiy Kovalenko, while reporting that the death had been confirmed by the Horlivka Diocese, stated that the priest was no longer employed by the diocese and was a “freelancer”.
The Prosecutor General’s Office has assured that all necessary investigative measures are currently taking place in order to accomplish speedy and objective prosecution of these criminal cases.
Source: Prosecutor General’s Office, Sergiy Garmash’s Facebook; photo credit: hromadske.tv and uainfo
Compiled and translated by: Olga Ruda
