Investigation into State Duma deputy Starovoitova’s murder reopened – aide

(Interfax – ST. PETERSBURG. Aug 6, 2013) The Federal Security Service (FSB) department for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region has reopened an investigation into the 1998 assassination of State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova, Ruslan Linkov, Starovoitova’s former aide, told Interfax on Tuesday.

“The investigation was reopened on August 1. It was done because certain investigative procedures can be conducted only as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. Perhaps the law enforcement needs to review the operational information they obtained earlier and make further decisions,” Linkov said.

At least three of those suspected of involvement in the killing, including two suspected of technically organizing it, are on the international most wanted list, he said.

Asked whether the investigation could name the person suspected of ordering Starovoitova’s assassination any time soon, Linkov said he hopes for this.

He declined further comments to safeguard the investigation’s confidentiality.

Starovoitova, a State Duma deputy and a co-chair of the party Democratic Russia, was shot and killed in the lobby of an apartment block where she lived in St. Petersburg on November 20, 1998. The St. Petersburg City Court found Yury Kolchin guilty of organizing Starovoitova’s killing and Vitaly Akishin of committing the murder itself and sentenced Kolchin to 20 years and Akishin to 23.5 years in prison in June 2005.

The FSB department for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region suspended the investigation into Starovoitova’s murder in March 2012. The investigation had been suspended earlier as well and was reopened in October 2011 “in view of the need for additional investigative procedures.”