KIEV, June 25 – President Viktor Yushchenko Thursday attacked Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko for delaying legislation stripping lawmakers of immunity, and pressed for investigation into a recent murder that may have involved one of her allies.

Yushchenko met top official from the SBU security service, the Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General Office pressing for the investigation into the death of Valeriy Oliynyk, 55, in the Kirovohrad region.

Oliynyk, who reportedly lived a quiet life in Hrushky village, died June 16 under unclear circumstances following an encounter with Viktor Lozynskiy, a lawmaker from the Tymoshenko Bloc.

Lozynskiy, accompanied by his friends, Holovanivskiy district prosecutor Yevhen Horbenko and district police chief Mykhaylo Kovalskiy, was on a hunting expedition in the area when the death had occurred.

Oliynyk’s body, examined by forensic experts, apparently contained multiple shooting wounds, broken ribs and a broken leg, suggesting that his death had been violent, according to people familiar with the issue.

“For a week the society has been troubled by this murder and by the fact that all actions taken so far show that neither the Prosecutor General’s Office nor police have taken legal steps in the investigation that would renew the trust of the people,” Yushchenko said at the meeting.

Yushchenko said the Prosecutor General’s Office must create a team of law enforcers and to appoint a special prosecutor that would take over from police the investigation of the murder.

Next week the president pledged to hold a special meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, the country’s top security body, to check the pace of the investigation.

Meanwhile, local newspapers have had troubling reports from Hrushky village where Lozynskiy apparently owns a major hunting ground and has been widely regarded among local villagers as “the boss” of the region.

“They saw a man [Oliynyk] who has been wondering around near [Lozynskiy’s] hunting ground. So, the company has probably decided to have fun and to give a lesson to the unwanted guest, to chase him as a rabbit,” Olekskiy, a Hrushky villager, told Segodnia daily.

Olekskiy said that fellow villagers that night saw Lozynskiy and his powerful law enforcement friends, dressed in hunting uniform and armed with hunting rifles, drinking at a local bar.

Lozynskiy earlier this week issued a statement admitting the encounter, but suggesting that he and his friends had acted in self-defense. He said the company roamed through a field in an SUV when they noticed a man who had looked “suspicious.”

“I got out of the car and asked ‘Who are you?” Lozynskiy said.

He said the man in return had opened fire. The company, he said, chased and tackled the man, but the man had allegedly pulled out another gun, and a knife.

Lozynskiy said the company then retreated, and called for police reinforcement. He said the police had later taken the wounded man to a local hospital, where the man had died.

But an employee at the hospital told Segodnia that there was “a dead body delivered, handcuffed.”

“We counted nine shooting wounds, and also an openly broken leg, broken ribs and a broken collar-bone,” the employee told the newspaper. “Only please do not mention my name!”

Yushchenko used the Oliynyk murder case to underscore the need for quick approval of his legislation that would strip lawmakers of immunity, something that Tymoshenko has been refusing to do for years.

“Prime Minister Tymoshenko signed a coalition agreement in which she had undertaken commitment to support the bill of stripping lawmakers of immunity,” Yushchenko said at the meeting.

“Today you, Yulia Volodymyrivna [Tymoshenko], have a majority in Ukrainian Parliament. Today, your fellow party members are [suspected of] killing people,” he said.

“If you are on the side of the law, I am convinced that you will support my initiative concerning the [lifting] lawmaker immunity,” Yushchenko said. (tl/ez)