Forbes.ua have posted an interview with the sons of Yevhen Shcherban, who was murdered with his wife in 1996. Shcherban may have been the richest man in Ukraine at the time of his death. Yulia Tymoshenko is being linked to these murders.
Below are portions of the sons' responses:
"Everything [all the business interests] that has been created by my father, collapsed in just over 8 months [after his death]... I was at the airport with my father when he was shot. Police arrived at the scene of a murder only after an hour, whereas [his] office was surrounded and documents seized faster. [What a] paradoxical situation. It was obvious that a well thought out and organized plan had been implemented. We are trying to sort out who and what sort of people had anything to do with this."
Also,
"State organs were very closely involved in this [threatening us]. A seizure of documents took place - which was very peculiar. At the airport, after the murder, over the body of my father, the first question I was asked was: "Where's the briefcase with the documents." The group of investigators who turned up included the heads of oblast departments of the Security Service, the Interior Ministry, the organised crime fighting agency, and head of the transport prosecutor's office. But they were primarily interested in our father's documents, rather than the details of the murder."
Ruslan admits that the recent fatal hunting accident, [where, its seems one of his friends fired his rifle, the bullet ricochetting from a tree to kill another friend], actually did take place. But he denies that he was blackmailed to issue any statement linking Tymoshenko and Lazarenko for the murder of their father.
The sons just say they are not accusing anyone of their father's murder, but only declared at the press conference a month after the hunting accident they had merely requested law enforcement agencies to check out any possible involvement of Lazarenko and Tymoshenko in the murder of their parents.
They say they have 'no beef' with one of their late father's associates, Rinat Akhmetov.
The sons say they only managed to retain 5% of their late father's assets. They say that they know a lot more that they are prepared to reveal at the moment...
They give no hint that Tymoshenko may have benefitted financially from the 'carve-up' of their father's assets.
[The actions of Ukrainian law enforcement officers is far from unique. E.g . in the case of Hermitage Capital Management, corrupt Russian law enforcement officers allegedly stole corporate registration documents and company seals of various holding companies. They then defrauded the Russian state of hundreds of millions of dollars tax paid by those companies. Pre-dated documents offering "proof" of transfer of ownership, or changes in ownership, or pre-dated 'IOU's, for presentation before a shady court, can easily be created.]
But Shcherban's sons give little hint who was behind all of this dirty business...I guess they are using every trick to take advantage of the situation and try and recover as much of their late father's assets as possible...if anyone gets hurt or suffers an injustice, so what?
Hard to believe that after a shooting at an international airport it took police one hour to arrive, no?
p.s. Important statement by European People's Party on Tymoshenko ruling here
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