Scherban’s son: ‘Money and influence played a fateful role in my father’s death’

“Sixteen years have passed since the death of my father. I have had a lot of time to think and analyze about to whom it was advantageous, to whom it was convenient, who benefited from the tragedy of our family, and what they received. Today I can reach grounded conclusions that the main reason behind the murder was an economic one,” he said in an exclusive interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukraine newspaper, which was published on July 12.

He added that there were also political motives in the murder of his father.

“My father was disadvantageous to the government when Pavlo Lazarenko served as prime minister. Yevhen Shcherban was a very influential figure, he wanted to come to power and he had already been in power. He had the largest faction in parliament – the liberal-democratic,” Scherban said.

In his opinion, “money and influence played a fateful role” in the tragedy.

Scherban claimed that he knew that his father “had conflicts with Pavlo Lazarenko and Yulia Tymoshenko.”

He said that his father often tried to meet with Lazarenko, and “these meetings ended badly.”

“I also knew Yulia Tymoshenko perfectly well, and I saw her often visit my father. They held discussions in offices and regional administrations. My father was Tymoshenko’s opponent in business. I mean the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU), the company she controlled at that time, and my father’s companies – Finansist, Industrial Union of Donbass, which supplied gas to steel plants in our region. He had multimillion-dollar contracts for gas supplies, and this did not suit UESU,” Scherban said.

He said that he was “personally present at the time of differences” between Tymoshenko and his father.

Scherban also said that his father’s killer, Vadym Bolotskykh, who refused to name those who ordered the murder during the trial in 2003, “knows those who ordered it and will talk about this.”

He said that he had filed with statement to the Prosecutor General’s Office the financial documents and other materials that have relation to the years 1995-1996, in particular, the business schemes of mutual relations between UESU and Industrial Union of Donbass.

As reported, a member of the executive committee of the Liberal Party, MP Yevhen Scherban, was shot dead at Donetsk Airport on November 3, 1996. The assailants fled the scene in a car. Scherban, his wife and a mechanic died from gunshot wounds at the scene, and a flight engineer was wounded in the neck and later died in hospital. At the time, the police ruled out there being political motives for the murder.

In April 2003, the Appeals Court of the Luhansk region sentenced Scherban’s murderer Vadym Bolotskykh to life in prison.

The slain businessman’s son, Ruslan Scherban, told reporters on April 4, 2012, that he had handed over evidence of ex-premiers Lazarenko and Tymoshenko’s involvement in his father’s murder to the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Tymoshenko and Lazarenko deny involvement.