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In the criminal proceedings for the death of journalist Pavel Sheremet, there is an interrogation protocol for a witness who claimed to know the murderer. The Zaborona edition found that the person named by the woman has connections to the former Minister of Revenue and Duties of Ukraine, Alexander Klimenko. It is also known that Sheremet met Klimenko shortly before his death.
There is an alternative version of the motives and motives for the murder of journalist Pavel Sheremet, which has nothing to do with the official accusation made by the National Police. According to the investigation of the journalists of the Zaborona website, the first part of which was published on September 22, the Ukrainian police have known since 2016 about a man who allegedly confessed to a crime.
The defendant’s name is Maxim Zotov, he is a businessman and amateur actor from Donetsk. As Marina Matsyuk, a displaced person from Donetsk, said during questioning by the police, in July 2016 Zotov was interested in whether she saw “how he killed Sheremet”.
In August 2016, he allegedly asked Matsyuk not to tell anyone about his involvement in the murder of a journalist and offered him $ 50,000 for silence.
Screenshot: zaborona.com
Matsyuk refuses to speak to the press about Zotov. However, the editors of Zaborona have a copy of his testimony, which they call “a major twist in the murder of Pavel Sheremet.”
As researchers discovered, since the pre-war era, Zotov is closely related to the family of the fugitive Ukraine’s Minister of Revenue and Duties, Alexander Klimenko. In Ukraine he is suspected of creating a corruption network to avoid taxes. Investigators named Zotov’s father-in-law, businessman Mikhail Epel, as one of the organizers of the plan that allowed former President Viktor Yanukovych’s circle to benefit from VAT refunds.
The defendant himself starred in the video in the role of “oligarch”, and was composed as Klimenko, the publication says.
“The investigation did not find it necessary to investigate or even declare Maxim Zotov’s connection to Epel and Klimenko. This is especially strange in light of the fact that the investigation group at one time considered Klimenko and his de facto wife Olga Semchenko as possibly related to the murder, “writes Zaborona. “.
A month before death Sheremet met with Klimenko in Moscowfriends and family told the site. Apparently, the meeting discussed the prospects for the former minister’s return to Ukraine. Perhaps Sheremet offered himself as editor-in-chief of Radio Vesti, where he worked as a presenter.
“He offered him his own solution, something that would set the stage for his return: an open, democratic and honest radio,” said Alena Pritula, Sheremet’s wife. According to her, after returning to Kiev, Sheremet repeated the same phrase about Klimenko several times: “He has orthodoxy of the brain, it is useless to talk to him.”
Shortly after that meeting, there was a major conflict on Radio Vesti: the journalists did not accept the new editor-in-chief, Irina Gavrilova, appointed from above. They signed an open letter against the appointment of Gavrilova, as she spoke publicly in an insulting manner towards Maidan participants and ATO volunteers. On July 5, she was fired. Sheremet’s signature was not on the letter. She died on July 20.
Zaborona announced the release of the second part of the investigation. “Having studied the characters who had access to the Klimenko case in the summer of 2016, whose defendant was Zotov’s father-in-law, Epel, we found many interesting connections and circumstances that confirm our version that the murder of Sheremet with high probability was related to the case. of the fugitive oligarch “, point out the authors of the publication.
On December 12, 2019, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced the arrest of those suspected of being involved in Sheremet’s murder. Later that day, the National Police named those probably implicated: the military nurse Yana Dugar, the military and musician Andrei Antonenko, and the child doctor and volunteer Yulia Kuzmenko.
Investigators believe Kuzmenko and Antonenko planted the explosives under Sheremet’s car. The latter was called the organizer of a criminal group. Dugar was allegedly involved in “intelligence”: she was looking for CCTV cameras on the conspirators’ route.
On May 21, it was learned that the text of the suspicion had been modified. The new edition says that Kuzmenko only planted the explosives together with Antonenko, but did not activate them.
On May 22, the police notified the defense of the suspects about the end of the pre-trial investigation.
Kiev’s Shevchenko District Court decided that the suspects will be tried by a jury. The first meeting is essentially scheduled for September 28.
May 24, 2017 in 15 regions of Ukraine 454 searches were performed simultaneously in the framework of criminal proceedings against former officials of the tax administrations, who are suspected of being involved in the organization and operation of tax evasion schemes – “tax platforms”. The detainees were transferred by helicopter from different regions of Ukraine to Kiev.
Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor, Anatoly Matios, claimed the plan was behind Ukraine’s former revenue and collection minister Klimenko, who is on the international wanted list.
In the summer of 2017, the Attorney General’s Office announced that the activities of the criminal organization Klimenko to create “tax platforms” caused damage to the state amounting to UAH 96 billion.
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