Serhiy Demishkan is the son of Volodymyr Demishkan, who is reportedly a close friend of Yanukovych and heads Ukravtodor, the state monopoly responsible for development of the country’s road network. The elder Demishkan is also a member of parliament representing the pro-presidential Party of Regions.

His son Serhiy is charged with committing a murder in October 2007. According to the indictment, Demishkan and his two accomplices kidnapped Kyiv resident Vasyl Kryvozub, 62, the director of a small airline, as they tried to force him to give Demishkan one of the planes belonging to Kryvozub’s company.

When Kryvozub refused to do so, Demishkan and his accomplices allegedly murdered him by throwing him in an irrigation channel with a radiator tied to his back. If proven guilty, Demishkan could face a life sentence. However, the Kyiv Appellate Court, where the trial started in September 2008, in late 2010 released Demishkan on bail.

At the same time, the prosecution requested additional investigation, despite the fact that Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka – also a close Yanukovych friend – in 2007 had, as a deputy prosecutor, signed Demishkan’s indictment before submitting it to the court.

Now, the prosecutor’s office has to decide which authority will investigate the case further, while the victim’s family plans to submit an appeal to the European Human Rights Court for violating the maximum duration term for investigation. Andriy Mamalyga, who represents the victim’s family in court, is pessimistic that this case will ever reach a verdict, due to the fact that Demishkan’s father is now a government official.
Volodymyr Demishkan denied interfering on his son’s behalf. But Mamalyga predicts that the case against Demishkan “will simply disappear” along with the many other cases of alleged corruption and wrongdoing since Ukraine became a nation in 1991.

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/94775/