MOSCOW, November 17. /TASS/. A court in Ukraine obliged the Prosecutor General’s Office to open a case against officers of the Security Service of Ukraine in connection with US journalist Gonzalo Lira’s death in a pretrial facility in Kharkov, opposition lawmaker Alexander Dubinsky said.

"At my request, the court obliged the Prosecutor General’s Office to open a case against SBU officers involved in the abduction and killing of US journalist and blogger Gonzalo Lira," the lawmaker wrote on Telegram.

In his words, Lira was abducted and killed in pretrial detention to conceal the fact that SBU officers had tried to extort $70,000 out of Lira in exchange for letting him out of custody on bail.

Earlier, Dubinsky claimed that Lira was beaten to death. In August, the lawmaker said the SBU had to register the murder case.

The reporter was detained in Kharkov in May 2023. He was accused of supporting the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. In October 2023, Lira fell ill with bilateral pneumonia. According to the journalist's father, the prison administration ignored the fact of his illness and tried to hide it from Lira's family and lawyers. In January 2024, the US Department of State confirmed the accuracy of the data about Lira's death in custody in Ukraine. In February, US billionaire Elon Musk accused Zelensky of murdering Lira.