18-year-old arrested in Iryna Farion murder case
The Murder of the Far-Right Ukrainian Politician Iryna Farion Makes Waves. A Week Later, Authorities Score a Success: In the City of Dnipro, an 18-Year-Old is Arrested. The Proof of His Guilt is Clear, According to the Interior Ministry.
According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, an 18-year-old has been arrested in connection to the murder of a former Ukrainian parliamentarian, Iryna Farion. Zelenskyy announced this on Telegram, stating that he had been briefed on the latest developments in the case by Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. The 60-year-old former parliamentarian from the far-right Swoboda (Freedom) party was shot in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on July 19.
According to Interior Minister Klymenko, the suspected killer was arrested in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro. There is "sufficient evidence" that this individual killed the linguistics professor Farion, Klymenko wrote on Telegram and released a photo of a man with his upper body naked and his face down in handcuffs. The National Police published the image on Facebook.
Klymenko stated that the investigators had traced the suspect's escape route and searched "approximately 100 hectares of forest." Eventually, the suspect was located.
Current investigations suggest that the shooter carried out the crime alone, and there may be an instigator, Klymenko added. Additional information would be released at a later time.
Confessional Letter in Russian
According to the news site "Ukrainska Pravda," Farion was shot while waiting for a taxi. The 60-year-old was a renowned professor at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences in Lviv and an advocate for the use of the Ukrainian language instead of Russian. She frequently appeared on Ukrainian television and published her own videos on YouTube. The philologist served in the parliament for Swoboda from 2012 to 2014.
Following her murder, Ukrainian Interior Minister Klymenko stated that the motives for the crime could include Farion's "public or political activity, as well as personal animosity." A confessional letter with an allegedly recorded-at-the-scene video and a call for a "racial war" in Russian was circulated on Telegram on a Monday. Farion was laid to rest in Lviv on that day.
The arrest of the suspected murderer in Dnipro, as announced by Interior Minister Klymenko, has sparked controversy in the Ukrainian politics due to Farion's political affiliations with the Swoboda party. The suspected confession letter, circulated on Telegram, hints at personal animosity or political motives behind Farion's murder.
