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Kiev court puts in custody another suspect in journalist Sheremet’s murder

Court ruled to place in custody for two months Yulia Kuzmenko

© Petr Sivkov/TASS, archive

KIEV, December 14. /TASS/. Kiev’s Pechersky District Court ruled to place in custody for two months Yulia Kuzmenko, a suspect in the high-profile murder of journalist Pavel Sheremet, Judge Sergei Vovk said.

"Custody until February 8 shall be applied," the judge said on Friday.

Earlier in the day, the court ordered a suspected accomplice in the assassination, Yana Dugar, to be placed under house arrest. Both Kuzmenko and Dugar were participants in the military operation in Donbass.

The court session on custody for another suspect, Andrei Antonenko, was adjourned as the judge recused himself from the case.

Earlier in the day it was reported that a partially disassembled landmine, whose elements could have been used to make the improvised explosive device that killed Sheremet, were seized from Antonenko.

"The cover of it was lifted. Apparently, some parts of it were removed," Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said, adding that there was no evidence so far proving that fragments of this landmine were used in the assassination.

On Friday, Ukrainian law enforcers named five suspects in the assassination of Pavel Sheremet: Andrei Antonenko, Yulia Kuzmenko, Yana Dugar, and the Grishchenko couple - Vladislav and Irina. All of them are nationalists who participated in the military operation in Donbass. They are suspected of committing the murder with the aim of socio-political destabilization in Ukraine.

Pavel Sheremet is a Belarussian and Ukrainian journalist. For the last five years before the assassination he lived in Kiev, where he worked for the daily Ukrainskaya Pravda and the Vesti radio station. He was killed in Kiev on July 20, 2016 on the way to the Vesti studio for a morning broadcast. A bomb went off in his car. He had kept a blog in the online resource Ukrainskaya Pravda, launched a popular science online resource Historical Truth and hosted a project called Dialogues on Ukraine’s TV channel "24."

According to investigators, the bomb was apparently planted by Kuzmenko.

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