Today, October 1, a court hearing is due to take place at the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Lviv, at which Vyacheslav Zinchenko, accused of murdering linguist Iryna Farion, is to be handed down the verdict in the case. Zinchenko faces life imprisonment, reports UNN.
Details
The court hearing in case No. 466/12967/24 concerning premeditated murder will begin at 10:30 a.m. at the premises of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Lviv. Iryna Farion’s daughter, Sofia Osoba, is appearing as the injured party. The accused is Vyacheslav Zinchenko.
Additional information
On July 19, 2024, linguist Iryna Farion was shot in Lviv. It was reported at the time that the attempted assassination took place at around 7:30 p.m. on one of Lviv’s streets. An unknown individual fired a weapon in Farion’s direction.
It later became known that Farion died in hospital after the attack.
The then Minister of Internal Affairs, Ihor Klymenko, stated that the attack on Iryna Farion had been classified as an attempted premeditated murder. Police had several theories regarding the linguist’s murder, including her public and political activities and personal animosity. Law enforcement officers found a shell casing after the shooting and did not rule out a "Russian trace" in the crime.
On July 25, it became known that an 18-year-old suspect in Iryna Farion’s murder had been detained in Dnipro. Klymenko stated that law enforcement had sufficient evidence to assert that Vyacheslav Zinchenko was the person who shot the woman. According to him, the investigation lasted 139 hours.
The first court hearing on choosing a preventive measure for Zinchenko took place on July 26, 2024, at the Halytskyi District Court of Lviv. The court then remanded him in custody without the right to bail, while in September of that year Zinchenko himself asked the court to extend his preventive measure because he feared for his life.
They want to transfer me to a pretrial detention center. Know that if something happens to me, if my preventive measure is not extended, I will... I do not want to kill myself, I am not planning to, under any circumstances. So know that if something happens to me, then someone helped. I ask the prosecutors and judges to extend my preventive measure
At the first hearing, Zinchenko did not admit his guilt and asked journalists to pose more interesting questions, calling theirs "some kind of boring stuff."
At the end of December 2024, the prosecutor’s office submitted the case concerning Iryna Farion’s murder to court.
Prosecutors from the Lviv Regional Prosecutor’s Office completed the pretrial investigation and submitted to court an indictment against an 18-year-old resident of the city of Dnipro, accused of murdering public figure and People’s Deputy of Ukraine of the VII convocation Iryna Farion
At the same time, law enforcement authorities reclassified the case concerning Farion’s murder as the murder of a person in connection with the performance of a public duty, motivated by national intolerance, as well as unlawful handling of weapons. Under the charges, Zinchenko faces life imprisonment.
On September 17, court pleadings concluded at the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Lviv in the case concerning the murder of linguist Iryna Farion. After that, the court retired to the deliberation room to reach a decision.
At the beginning of the hearing, the defense asked for additional time to review the case materials, in particular the forensic medical examination. The female lawyer also stated that certain materials had been scanned improperly and spoke about pressure on the defense.
The court granted the defense 20 minutes to review the materials. After the break, the female lawyer asked to postpone the hearing until September 18 in order to complete preparations for her statement during the pleadings.
The prosecutors objected to this motion. They noted that the defense had already been given time to review the case materials.
According to the prosecutor, during the pretrial investigation in the case, more than 60 examinations were ordered, more than 1,500 people were questioned, and footage from surveillance cameras was processed.