Kuchma and Lazarenko 'did in' Shcherban?

Forbes.ua run the second part of an interview with one of the late Yevhen Shcherban's closest business associates from the early nineties, Yuriy Dedukh.

He accuses president Kuchma and Pavlo Lazarenko of commissioning the assassination of Yevhen Shcherban..but says Shcherban he 'had no beef' with Tymoshenko..

He claims Volodymyr Shcherban, who recently testified in pre-trial hearings in the case,  was 'in on the hit' and even 'phoned people in the USA to inform them about plans to 'do in' Yevhen Shcherban.

Volodymyr Shcherban left Ukraine after the killing, only to return after two years....and be appointed regional governor of Sumy oblast.

Didukh says: "Volodya Shcherban 'sold' Zhenya [Shcherban]." [the appointment as governor being the reward for this..]

According to Dedukh, 'Special forces' did the dirty deed...Yevhen Kushnir, another Donetsk businessman/gangster was framed for the Shcherban killing and for many others. [It is unlikely a profession hitman would ever arrange such a spectacular killing as that which took place at Donetsk airport in November 1996 - a high-security, hig risk environment.]

Dedukh claims the murder of Paul Tatum, a US citizen which took place in Moscow on the same day as Shcherban's killing, was coincidental - they were not linked. [Hmmm..]

Some of Dedukh's answers are clearly evasive - he does not give any hint who may have tried to kill him [and Shcherban's son] a year after his father's Shcherban's killing..But he does say that criminal investigators tipped him off that it may have been Rinat Akhmetov, but then when he later met Akhmetov personally, Akhmetov complained that these same criminal investigators told him Dedukh had fingered Akhmetov for the assassination attempt, in other words criminal investigators were trying to artificially set up a serious conflict between them.

People such as Dedukh do not give up such information out of altruism. It is quite possible that some very rich people are embarrassed by the raking over of the Shcherban murder....and narratives such as Dedukh's perhaps help the mud to stick elsewhere.. but a lot of unanswered questions still remain..

And the case against Tymoshenko is looking ever weaker, strengthening the view that she is the victim of 'selective use of justice'.