Ex-MP Glushchenko will be charged with Galina Starovoitova’s murder – lawyer

Russian Duma Building

ST. PETERSBURG. Nov 7 (Interfax) – Investigators are preparing to charge former Russian parliamentarian Mikhail Glushchenko with masterminding the assassination of State Duma member Galina Starovoitova in 1998, Glushchenko’s lawyer Alexander Afanasyev told Interfax on Thursday.

“Both defense lawyers representing Mikhail Ivanovich [Glushchenko] were officially notified that at 2:00 p.m. tomorrow he will be charged under Part 3 of Article 33 of the Russian Penal Code (involvement in masterminding a crime) and Article 277 (an attempt on a statesperson’s life). He should receive this document within the following hour as well,” Afanasyev said.

It was announced earlier that on August 1 the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) resumed its inquiry into Starovoitova’s murder. The investigation had been suspended in March 2012.

According to Starovoitova’s former adviser, this decision was made because investigative measures could be taken only as part of an ongoing inquiry.

Democratic Russia co-chairperson Starovoitova was shot dead in the lobby of her apartment building in St. Petersburg on November 20, 1998. In June 2005, the St. Petersburg City Court convicted Yury Kolchin of masterminding the parliamentarian’s murder and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Vitaly Akishin, the man who pulled the trigger, received 23.5 years in prison.

At least three other people remain on the international most wanted list in connection with Starovoitova’s murder.

Glushchenko was mentioned by the media more than once over the course of the Starovoitova murder investigation. The FSB questioned him as a witness in this case.

On March 5, 2013, the Kuibyshevsky District Court of St. Petersburg convicted Glushchenko of extortion, sentencing him to eight years in a high-security prison and ordering him to pay a fine of 300,000 rubles. In was established that Glushchenko had been providing a cover for the Shevchenko brothers’ business in St. Petersburg since 1992. In 2004, the Shevchenko brothers paid Glushchenko $50,000 a month for his services.

The St. Petersburg court’s verdict was appealed.

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