Kolomoisky charged with organizing contract killing in 2003
On May 8, the National Police pressed charges against businessman Ihor Kolomoisky over organizing a contract killing (Part 4 of Article 27, Part 2 of Article 15, Clauses 11, 12, Part 2 of Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), reported the Office of the Prosecutor General and the press service of the National Police.
They do not mention Kolomoisky's name directly, but illustrate the message with his photos.
According to the investigation, in August 2003, in the center of Feodosia, four men brutally beat and stabbed a lawyer. Doctors managed to save the victim's life. Then the law enforcement officers arrested the perpetrators of the contract killing. Now, according to the police, indisputable evidence has appeared that confirms the identity of the contractor.
The motive is revenge against the lawyer for refusing to cooperate in an illegal scheme.
The case of an attempt on lawyer Serhiy Karpenko
In 2003, an attempt was made in Crimea on lawyer Serhiy Karpenko, who allegedly refused to assist Kolomoisky in gaining control over the Dniprospetsstal plant. He was stabbed three times but survived.
Four perpetrators of the crime were arrested and later sentenced to imprisonment for 6 to 12 years.
In 2005, the Ukrainian prosecutor's office opened a case against Kolomoisky on charges of ordering an assassination attempt on Karpenko, but the case was not allowed to proceed, and in 2014, the investigator Ihor Sholodko, who was probing the case, died during the defense of the Donetsk airport.
In 2015, the then Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin said in an interview with outlet LB.ua that the Prosecutor General's Office reopened the case against Kolomoisky, and later the details of this episode emerged during the trial in the High Court of London between Kolomoisky and Viktor Pinchuk.
Pinchuk's lawyers presented the testimony of Ukrainian lawyer Serhiy Karpenko to the London court that Kolomoisky threatened him during a meeting in 2003. They also stated that the attackers were connected to Serhiy Nikitin, Kolomoisky's personal bodyguard, and later the head of the private security company BOG, which belonged to Kolomoisky and his business partner Hennadiy Boholyubov.
Nikitin's body with ten stab wounds was found in a river in Dnipropetrovsk several weeks after the attack. Nikitin's killer was also found dead. At first it was claimed that he had committed suicide, but after the exhumation of the body it was found that he had been shot.
Ihor Kolomoisky has been in a pre-trial detention center since September 2023. He is suspected of illegally taking possession of UAH 5.8 billion ($147.3 million) by fictitiously depositing cash into the cash register of PrivatBank.