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Prosecutors check Timoshenko’s links to murders

Lazarenko and Timoshenko could face life imprisonment if they are found guilty

KIEV, April 7 (Itar-Tass) — Prosecutors in Ukraine are trying to establish whether the country’s ex-prime ministers, Pavel Lazarenko and Yulia Timoshenko, are linked to two murders, Renat Kuzmin, the first deputy chief prosecutor, said in a live interview with the Inter television channel on Saturday.

“Apart from the murder of deputy and businessmen Yevgeny Shcherban, we are studying Lazarenko’s and Timoshenko’s complicity in the killing of businessman Mamot from Donetsk. He had been murdered several months prior to Shcherban,” Kuzmin went on to say. Besides, the deputy chief prosecutor said that the two former prime ministers could also be involved in murdering Vadim Getman.

“As soon as we prove Timoshenko’s complicity to these murders, she will face charges and the case will be handed over to court. If we fail to prove anything, I will openly declare that there’s no evidence and that the case is closed,” Kuzmin emphasized.

Lazarenko and Timoshenko could face life imprisonment if they are found guilty.

Businessman Yevgeny Shcherban and his wife were shot dead at Donetsk airport in 1996.

Vadim Getman, the head of Ukraine’s National Bank and the stock-exchange committee of the Ukrainian Inter-Bank Currency Exchange, was killed in Kiev in April 1998.

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FACTBOX: Collective Security Treaty Organization

The Collective Security Treaty came into force on April 20, 1994 to herald the emergence what would eventually become the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The six member-countries are Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan

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