KIEV, July 4 – Ukraine’s SBU security service launched a nationwide manhunt on Friday, seeking to capture Viktor Lozynskiy, a lawmaker, accused of involvement in a recent murder in Kirovohrad region.

The manhunt was ordered by prosecutors after Lozynskiy disappeared on Friday, shortly before Parliament voted overwhelmingly to lift his immunity, opening the way for a full-fledged investigation.

Lozynkskiy, who represented the group of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in Parliament, is accused to shooting to death Valeriy Oliynyk, 55, a villager in the Kirovohrad region, on June 16.

Two of Lozynksiy’s accomplices, Holovanivskiy district prosecutor Yevhen Horbenko and Holovanivskiy district police chief Mykhaylo Kovalskiy, have been detained and are under investigation.

The investigation is watched closely as it may have major political repercussions for Tymoshenko – and perhaps some other officials, such as Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko - just ahead of the next presidential election.

Meanwhile, Kovalskiy told prosecutors that there was apparently a fourth accomplice in the murder, an unnamed woman, a source familiar with the investigation told Dzerkalo Tyzhnia weekly.

The source said Kovalskiy, who apparently began to cooperate with the investigation on Thursday, said that Lozynskiy had been making the shots at Oliynyk that had caused his death, according to the newspaper.

Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko recently the investigation has been exploring the possibility that there were more than three people involved in the murder of Oliynyk.

Local residents in the region told local newspapers that Lozynskiy, who owns a major hunting grounds in the Kirovohrad region, and group of his friends, have been chasing Oliynyk in the field “as a rabbit,” before shooting him to death.

Lozynskiy denied the allegations. He said the group acted in self-defense alleging that Oliynyk had opened fire against them.

Medvedko said forensic tests showed that Oliynyk had never fired any shots and had not had any weapons at the time of the incidents.

“I, as the prosecutor general, as of this moment have enough evidence to state that the Holovaniskiy prosecutor, the Holovaniskiy police chief and the lawmaker [Lozynskiy] are involved in the death of Oliynyk,” Medvedko said in an interview with Dzerkalo Tyzhnia published Saturday. (tl/ez)