Ukraine SBU ‘may have seen planting of bomb that killed journalist’
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UK newspaper the Guardian at May 10 reports about a documentary which suggests that the murder on journalist Pavel Sheremet was done by Ukraine secret service SBU. The journalist supported the pro-western uprising in 2014 that saw Viktor Yanukovych flee to Russia, but had also been bitingly critical of Ukraine’s new authorities.
This story is another example of how Ukraine SBU operates. SBU provided all kind of intelligence on the MH17 shot down to Dutch public prosecution service.
Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, had said it was a “matter of honour” that Sheremet’s case be promptly solved. He called for a transparent investigation by police and the security services. However, 10 months later no one has been arrested.
Pavel Sheremet had just left his home in the Ukrainian capital and was driving to work when his car exploded.
The Bellingcat citizen journalist group managed to identify a suspicious car – a grey Skoda – and its registration using surveillance camera recordings.
Timmi Allen of Bellingcat spent two weeks analyzing 500 still frames from a (very) blurry security camera, then over-layed them to produce a legible plate number.
Bellingcat’s spent two weeks recreating a number plate in the hunt for Pavel Sheremet’s killers pic.twitter.com/IUpoZBjFZV
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins)
Ukraine journalists then found out the original owner of the Skoda Octavia. She confesed she was used as a proxy by a man. Remarkable enough the Ukraine police did not trace back the car to the original owner named Nataliya.
The man is called Igor Ustimenko. Ustimenko admitted being in the area that night and said he had been hired as a private investigator to keep watch on someone’s children. He denied seeing the bombers and said police had not contacted him.
A government source confirmed that Ustimenko had been working since 2014 for Ukraine’s SBU secret intelligence service.
”Killing Pavel,” was produced by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and its Ukrainian partner, Slidstvo.Info. The english subtitled video can be seen on Youtube .
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SBU spokeswoman Olena Gitlyanska, 10 May 2017:
“Be informed that Ustimenko Igor Andriyovych was dismissed from SBU on 29 April 2014.”
In any case Ustimenko’s behaviour (consent to meet with the journalists, confirmation it was his car and it was he on the video, keeping his phone number) suggests he was not involved in the murder. He might spy on Sheremet though. Some signs suggest he is an anti-regime person. By his answers I am not sure his acknowledgement it was he on the video is true.
The National Police of Ukraine conducted an investigatory experiment involving the former SBU employee Ustimenko in the case of the murder of Sheremet.
https://112.ua/obshchestvo/policiya-provela-sledstvennyy-eksperiment-s-uchastiem-eks-sotrudnika-sbu-ustimenko-v-ramkah-dela-ob-ubiystve-sheremeta-397075.html
June 29
https://newsone.ua/ru/gordon-ubijstvo-sheremeta-raskryto-no-o-nem-ne-govoryat/
Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon:
“The murder of Pavel Sheremet has been detected, but this was not made public. Why was it not made public that the killer of Sheremet is known, the motives are known, everything is known?”
Gordon also said that the Russian Federation had nothing to do with Sheremet’s murder and that his death was a result of “internal dealings”.