Ukrainian police rejects reports saying body of lawyer Grabovsky was found in Kiev region

World March 25, 2016, 11:30

Earlier in the day, the association of Ukrainian lawyers said that the missing lawyer of Russian citizen Alexander Aleksandrov was found dead

KIEV, March 25. /TASS/. Ukraine’s police rejected reports on Friday that the body of lawyer Yuri Grabovsky who represented interests of detained Russian citizen Alexander Aleksandrov in a Ukrainian court has been found in the Kiev region.

"No body of lawyer Grabovsky has been found in the Kiev region," said Nikolai Zhukovich, who heads the press service of Ukraine’s national police in the Kiev region.

Earlier in the day, the association of Ukrainian lawyers said that Grabovsky has been found dead. "The suspect in this crime has been detained, and we hope that all those involved in the murder of our colleague will be punished," statement said. The association gave no details where the body was found.

Oksana Sokolovskaya, lawyer for the second detained Russian Yevgeny Yerofeyev, later told TASS that the body of Grabovsky was "found buried in the Kiev region." "It is known for sure that this is Grabovsky," she stressed.

Grabovsky mysteriously disappeared in early March. His colleagues have established that the lawyer was in Odessa, southern Ukraine, on March 5 and returned to his Kiev office the following day, and no one saw him later. His personal belongings were found in hotel Arcadia in Odessa while a notice on the lawyer’s behalf was posted on his page in a social network saying he had left the country for security reasons.

Police have opened a criminal case under the "premeditated murder" article over Grabovsky’s disappearance. Sokolovskaya earlier said that Grabovsky’s disappearance was related to the court’s hearings on the case and that the materials on the defense for the Russian nationals in court had disappeared together with Grabovsky.

Aleksandrov and Yerofeyev were captured by Ukraine’s forces on May 16, 2015, in the Lugansk region, in eastern Ukraine. They are accused of illegal border crossing, illegal possession of arms and involvement in terrorist activity. Kiev claims the detainees are Russian servicemen. However, the Russian Defense Ministry said the Russians "were not active servicemen of Russia’s Armed Forces at the moment of their detention.".

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