On 25 April, several dozen activists gathered outside the home of Yuri Lutsenko, Ukraine’s General Prosecutor. The demonstrators, part of the “Who killed Katya Handzyuk?” initiative, wanted to ask Lutsenko about the status of the investigation into the murder of Kherson activist Kateryna Handzyuk - and why defendants in this case are now facing lighter charges. Lutsenko did not comment on their questions.
Anti-corruption activist Kateryna Handzyuk, 33, died from numerous burns on 4 November 2018. This was the result of injuries received on 31 July, when, as Handzyuk left her home in the southern city of Kherson, an assailant poured a litre of sulfuric acid over her.
Ukrainian police have qualified the attack as “premeditated murder for self-seeking motives, carried out with particular cruelty, on order, and according to a pre-existing agreement by a group of individuals”. And the investigation has identified a clear hierarchy of assailants, organisers, middlemen and clients of this crime. The General Prosecutor’s Office has already declared its suspicion to several of them, but in the past week has changed the nature of its suspicions against the suspects.
