MOSCOW, March 2. /TASS/. Former investigators who worked on journalist Vladislav Listyev’s assassination claim they have effectively solved the case.
"I believe there are no riddles for us in terms of participants and accomplices," Pyotr Triboy, former Prosecutor General's Office investigation group head, says in the Alexey Pivovarov's documentary.
Answering Pivovarov’s question about the instigator, Triboy said the investigators were quite certain about the instigator as well.
"[About] the instigator, too. I believe we have reasons for suspicion," he said.
The former investigators spoke no names. He disclosed that the investigation managed to determine a lot of elements that had decisive importance. For example, it was determined that the assassination took place 30 minutes later than was initially believed.
"This provided possible alibi to the assassin, who could say he was at a different place at that time," Triboy said.
The former Prosecutor General Yury Skuratov said that the suspected participants exerted pressure on the investigation and therefore evaded apprehension.
"The case was extremely difficult from the participants’ resistance standpoint," Skuratov said. He refused to reveal details of the investigation materials.
Earlier, journalists Kseniya Sobchak, Alexey Pivovarov and Rodion Chepel filed a plea to the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Investigative Committee, asking to return Listyev’s case into proceedings.
All versions were checked
In 2010, Vladimir Markin, then-spokesperson of the Investigative Committee, disclosed that the case was led for more than 11 years by the most experienced specialists, who conducted vast investigative actions, but it was impossible to determine the culprits. The Prosecutor’s Office suspended the case on April 3, 2006. Markin claimed that the Prosecutor’s Office investigators, together with the Interior Ministry’s Criminal Investigation Department, continue working on the case, despite it was never continued.
The investigators checked various versions of assassination reasons, filed requests and orders to various relevant bodies, including foreign ones. In December 2012, Markin disclosed that late businessman Boris Berezovsky was checked for involvement, but that the information was never confirmed.
The 38-year old Listyev was killed on March 1, 1995, at the entrance of his house on Novokuznetskaya Street. An unknown assailant shot him twice. The assassination took place one month after Listyev was appointed the chief editor of the nascent Public Russian Television (ORT), which is now Channel One. The case materials have reached 200 volumes.