Two suspects in inquiry into lawyer Hrabovskiy murder in Ukraine
KYIV. Aug 18 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian Military Prosecutor's Office has completed a preliminary inquiry into the murder of lawyer Yuri Hrabovskiy who represented Russian Alexander Alexandrov in court, according to Ihor Cherezov, the defense lawyer for Hrabovskiy's sister who is being treated as a victim in the case.
"Lawyer Cherezov has been informed at the military prosecutor's office which conducted a preliminary investigation of this case," according to a post on the Lawyer Cherezov and Partners' Facebook page on Thursday.
The case files, consisting of 15 volumes, will be made available very soon. The case still has two suspects suspected of two premeditated murders, which the investigators think they had committed with intent to rob.
"Our assessment is that the case will not be sent to court before September," according to the statement.
Reports of Hrabovskiy's disappearance appeared in early March 2016. The lawyer defended the Russian man Alexandrov in court in Kyiv.
Hrabovskiy was reported dead on March 25. On the same day, Ukraine's military prosecutor general Anatoly Matios said that Hrabovskiy died a violent death, from a firearm. He also announced the arrest in Odesa region of a second suspect who showed the murder scene and where the body had been buried.
On March 29 Matios showed the press an investigators' video footage, in which Hrabovskiy appears to be promising someone off-screen not to provide legal assistance to Alexandrov.
Hrabovskiy was buried at a Kyiv cemetery on April 2.
On April 5 Matios said that the investigators had established the circumstances that led to Hrabovskiy's murder, and predicted that the inquiry would be over in ten to 15 days.
In late July, the prosecutor announced that the murder had been solved.
According to the Ukrainian National Lawyers' Association, the murder of Hrabovskiy had to do with his professional activity.
On August 13 Matios rejected professional activity as a possible murder motive.