Ex-MP Lozinsky released from murder sentence ‘on health grounds’
Viktor Lozinsky, former MP convicted for murder in 2011 has been released early. The murder and Lozinsky’s trial received huge publicity at the time, and the announcement of his release on Wednesday also sped through the media and social networks. Early release on health grounds is provided for by legislation, but relatively seldom granted unless a person is close to death.
The State Penitentiary Service has confirmed Lozinsky’s release and denied any efforts to facilitate it. Quite the contrary, in fact, judging by remarks made by a Penitentiary Service official on his Facebook page. Serhiy Starenky stated that the court order was based on assessments provided by doctors and specialists.
“The conclusions of the Penitentiary Service’s medical commission which were given to the court earlier did not contain data which would have allowed the court to free Lozinsky from serving his sentence”. He added that Lozinsky’s health had been assessed by doctors with no link to the Penitentiary Service, and also says that the prosecutor supported the side of the state prosecution in court.
In August 2013 the Penitentiary Service refuted reports that Lozinsky had been moved to a social rehabilitation unit from the general cell in the Boryspil Prison Colony No. 119 in the Kyiv oblast.
In March 2013 the High Specialized Court on Civil and Criminal Cases reduced Lozinsky’s sentence from 14 to 10 years imprisonment.
Lozinsky was convicted of murdering 55-year-old Valery Oliynyk from the Kirovohrad oblast. Oliynyk was killed on June 16, 2009 after an encounter with Lozinsky, the former prosecutor of the Holovanivsk district, Yevhen Horbenko, and the former chief of the district police department, Mykhailo Kovalsky.
who were out hunting together.
Lozinsky was sentenced in April 2011 to 15 years, beginning from March 2010, for the murder with this being first reduced to 14 years in spring, 2012.
The high status of all those involved in the senseless killing and the belief that Lozinsky had been behaving like some kind of feudal lord caused outrage at the time. On July 3 2009 the Verkhovna Rada stripped Lozinsky of his parliamentary immunity at his own request, although he himself was placed on the wanted list. He was detained finally on March 1, 2010.