July 22 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko said on Friday that the recent murder of a well-known Ukrainian journalist was committed by a group of assailants.

 "The only thing I can make public now is that the killer was not alone. There was a group," Lutsenko told reporters, while commenting on the progress in investigating the murder of Pavel Sheremet.

Sheremet, who wrote for the online investigative media outlet Ukrainska Pravda, was killed Wednesday morning in Kiev on his way to work when an explosion ripped through the car he drove.

According to the Interior Ministry, the device, equivalent to 400-600 grams of TNT, was planted near the driver's seat.

Earlier on Friday, the Ukrainian website Obozrevatel released the surveillance video footage, which claims to show the moment of placing an explosive device underneath the car in the night before the incident.

The video showed a woman carrying a bag, who approached the car,  hunkered down near the driver side of the vehicle and quickly left.

The footage, which authenticity has not been confirmed by the authorities, also showed that the female suspect had a male accomplice, who talked to her and followed her on the way towards the car.

The 44-year-old Sheremet was a Minsk-born journalist and political analyst who had worked in Belarus and Russia before moving to Ukraine five years ago.

Zoryan Shkiryak, an adviser to Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, said earlier that Sheremet' s professional activities as a journalist are examined by the investigation as a primary motive for his murder.

Source:
courtesy of XINHUA NEWS AGENCY

by Xinhua News Agency

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