Maksakova regularly talked to her former husband Vladimir Tyurin

Maria Maksakova, the widow of former State Duma deputy Denis Voronenkov, regularly talked to her former common-law husband Vladimir Tyurin, Ilya Ponomaryov, former deputy of the Russian State Duma, said.

“Mr. Tyurin did not have a direct motive to order this killing and, from the very start, when this theory was considered, Masha [Maria Maksakova] considered it improbable, as she regularly talks to him; he is the father of her two children and those children live with him. For her, these conclusions are a shock and a personal tragedy,” Ponomaryov said at a joint briefing with Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko on Oct. 9.

Ponomaryov said he believes the investigation was unbiased and he and Maksakova trust its results.

Ponomaryov also said Russia may extradite Tyurin to Ukraine because his first citizenship is that of Kazakhstan. “Now there is an option to extradite this person [Tyurin]. Russia has this capability, as he has Kazakh citizenship and received Russian citizenship much later […] Under the Russian Constitution, he can be extradited to Ukraine. Or Russia will say it’s our political interest and will refuse to extradite him, thus making it clear who precisely was interested in it,” Ponomaryov said.

Ponomaryov said Tyurin is one of the most prominent crime bosses in Russia, “who now claims the title of the criminal king of the Russian world.”

In the meantime, Russian citizen Vladimir Tyurin, who is suspected by Ukrainian law-enforcement agencies of masterminding the killing of former Russian State Duma deputy Denis Voronenkov, cannot be extradited at Ukraine’s request, as the Russian Criminal Code does not allow it. The Code says that “citizens of the Russian Federation who committed a crime on the territory of a foreign state are not subject to extradition to that state.”

According to earlier reports, Voronenkov was killed in central Kyiv on March 23. The assassin, Pavlo Parshov, was wounded by the former deputy’s security guard and later died at a hospital.

Voronenkov’s assassin had an accomplice, Yaroslav Levenets, who has been wanted for economic crimes since 2012. Yaroslav Tarasenko is also a suspect in the crime. He was detained on July 16.