Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on March 24 that Interpol removed Ukrainian lawmaker Mykola Kniazhytsky from the international wanted list.
He was wanted by Cambodia on suspicion of raping a minor in 2011.
Avakov said that the Interior Ministry saw some “inconsistencies” in the Kniazhytsky search warrant and addressed the main Interpol office and Cambodia authorities about them.
“In 2:15 p.m. (on March 24) we received a response saying that the search was stopped for the time of investigation of these strange inconsistencies,” Avakov said at the press conference in Kyiv.
He didn’t specify what the inconsistencies were.
Mykhailo Bakhmutchenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian Interpol Bureau, confirmed that Kniazhytsky was removed from the international wanted list.
The search of Kniazhytsky on Interpol official website doesn’t show any results anymore, and his search card no longer can be accessed through a direct link.
Kniazhytsky, 46, was put on the list on March 23 as a suspect in raping of a minor in Pnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, on Sept. 9, 2011. He immediately denied the accusation, and called it a provocation against him.
Kniazhytsky considers that Russian businessman Konstantin Kagalovsky adulterated the accusation against him. Kagalovsky was previous owner of Ukrainian TV channel TVi, but he lost his ownership after a dispute with Kniazhytsky, then CEO of TVi, in April 2013.
Kagalovskiy denied the accusation against him in a commentary to Ukrainian website Telekritika on March 23.
Kniazhytsky might have an alibi for the day of the crime. His press service said that on the evening of Sept. 8, 2011, Kniazhytsky hosted a TV talk show “Evening with Mykola Kniazhytsky” on TVi station, so he could hardly reach Cambodia by Sept. 9 due to the distance. A flight to Cambodia from Ukraine takes around 12-15 hours.
Mridula Ghosh, who was at the show as a guest, confirmed to the Kyiv Post that the show was broadcast live and wasn’t pre-recorded.
