Former Kherson Oblast Council head convicted for ordering murder of local activist Kateryna Handziuk
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Kyiv's Dniprovskyi District Court announced the verdict in the case of the murder of Kherson activist Kateryna Handziuk on June 26.
The court has found former head of the Kherson Oblast Council Vladyslav Manher guilty of ordering the attack and his assistant Oleksii Levin of organizing it. They were sentenced to 10 years in prison each and charged Hr 15 million ($406,000), which will go toward the victim's family.
Kateryna Handziuk was an activist, an advisor to the Kherson mayor, and an acting head of affairs of the Kherson City Council's executive committee. In 2018, Kateryna was doused with acid near her house and died from chemical burns three months later.
According to Ukraine's Security Service (SBU), the initial plan of the attack, agreed with Manher, was to break the activist's limbs or pour sulfuric acid over her face.
The perpetrators were paid $5,000 for the crime, the SBU wrote.
The SBU completed a pre-trial investigation in the case against Manher and Levin in April 2020. At that time, five people had already been sentenced — Serhii Torbin, who led the operation, and his conspirators, Mykyta Hrabchuk, Volodymyr Vasianovych, Viacheslav Vyshnevskyi, and Viktor Horbunov. They received prison sentences from three to 6.5 years.
Levin was detained on January 24, 2020, in Bulgaria with the cooperation of local law enforcement officers and later extradited to Ukraine.
