The main track that investigators go in case of killing former Ukrainian high official in Madrid
Image from Crime's Lpcul in the case of former politician Andrii Pornov in Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid (spain). Credit Line: Ricardo Rubio / Contactophoto / Profimedia
The track of an account of accounts in relation to the organized crime is the privileged one after the assassination of the former Ukrainian deputy Andrii Pornov. However, investigators do not exclude the variant of a crime with “political motivations”, informs AFP on Thursday, which cites a source of the police, Agerpres reports.
On Wednesday, around 09:15, Andrii Pornov was killed in front of the US school in the Pozuelo neighborhood of Madrid where he had just brought his children.
Several suspects, who fled after committing the facts in a nearby forested area, were still looking for the police on Thursday.
Jurist and former senior official in Ukraine, Pornov, 51, had been a deputy in the 2000s, before being appointed deputy chief of the Presidential Administration of the former President Viktor Yanukovici, who fled after the bloody repression in 2014 of the pro-European demonstrations known as Euro-Maidan.
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Pornov had also fled to Russia, then to Austria, before returning to Ukraine in 2019 after the election of Volodimir Zelenski, in 2019.
According to the Ukrainian press, Pornov had managed to leave Ukraine in June 2022, after the Russian invasion, despite the almost total ban on the country imposed on men between the ages of 18 and 60.
Despite his personality, the runway of an organized murder assassination seems to be the most likely at this stage for investigators, the police source said on Thursday.
Since December 2021, the US has imposed sanctions against Andrei Pornov, for corruption. According to the American treasury, he had “formed a vast network of relationships within the judicial apparatus and the Ukrainian law enforcement, by corruption.”
“Since 2019, Pornov has taken measures to control the Ukrainian judicial system, influence the legislation, place loyal officials in management positions and buy judicial decisions,” accuses US Treasury.
Since the triggering of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, in February 2022, Ukraine has claimed or assigned several assassinations that targeted military or ideological persons and supporters, in Russia and occupied territories, but none outside of these areas.
Several assassinations committed abroad were also related to Russia, as was for example a Russian deserter who had been killed in Ukraine, killed in February 2024 in Spain.
