Former Ukrainian deputy was sentenced to 15 years for organizing the murder of a banker
Former people's deputy from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc Alexander Shepelev received 15 years in prison in the case of ordering the murder of banker Sergei Kirichenko.
The decision on this was made by the Obolonsky Court of Kyiv.
As follows from the message on the court’s website, the prosecution proved in court that the murder of Kirichenko, committed in 2003 in Donetsk, was caused by the desire to eliminate a competitor in the banking industry - Kirichenko headed the supervisory board of AvtoKrazBank, and Shepelev represented the rival bank Doncreditinvest.
Shepelev decided to order the murder of a competitor, which was supposed to look like an ordinary everyday crime. He turned to Cherednichenko’s acquaintances, Chibar and Babkov, who found two more accomplices. For the execution of the crime, Shepelev had to pay 40 thousand dollars, which he eventually paid - 15 thousand in advance and another 25 thousand after the murder.
Kirichenko was killed on January 14, 2003 in the entrance of his own house. In order to confuse law enforcement officers and pass off the murder as something that happened for domestic reasons, the victim was stabbed at least 14 times. The blows were inflicted all over the body; the heart, aorta, lungs, and intestines were damaged by penetrating stab wounds.
After the crime, two of the accomplices in the murder, on Shepelev’s recommendation, went on vacation to Thailand.
For a long time, the attackers managed to avoid punishment. But in 2012, the high-profile murder was solved. In the same year, Chibar, who was hiding in Sweden, was detained and subsequently convicted. And in 2013, two more accomplices, Babkov and Cherednichenko, were detained and convicted. All identified accomplices in the murder have served their sentences.
Shepelev himself did not admit guilt in court. On the contrary, he told the court that he had become a victim of Cherednichenko’s fraudulent actions. The murder of Kirichenko, according to him, was not related to banking activities. However, he did not provide convincing evidence; the court found Shepelev guilty of organizing a contract killing and sentenced him to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property.
Shepelev managed to hide from Ukrainian justice in the period from 2013 to 2018. Shepelev first fled from Ukraine to Hungary, from where he was extradited to Ukrainian law enforcement officers, but after some time he escaped from custody to Russia, where he spent almost a year in a pre-trial detention center. Ultimately, Shepelev was detained by Ukrainian law enforcement officers in the Kyiv region in February 2018. And he has been in custody since then.
In 2020, Shepelev was sentenced to 6 years for escaping from custody.
He is also involved in cases of embezzlement of funds from Rodovid Bank, organizing two attempted murders of banker Dyadechko, and ordering the murder of Colonel Organized Crime Control Department Roman Erokhin in 2006. Criminal cases related to these facts continue to be heard in courts.
Shepelev was elected twice (in 2006 and 2007) as a people's deputy on the list of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.
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