UPDATE: Journalist killed by car bomb in Kiev: Prosecutor General

Pavel Sheremet, 44, was killed in an explosion around 7:45 local time as he was travelling in a car in Kiev city centre.

Sheremet had recently complained that he was being followed, Poland’s PAP news agency reported.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said the journalist had been murdered. "Reports from the scene of the incident indicate that the death of Pavel Sheremet was the result of the blast of an explosive device. It was murder," Lutsenko wrote on Facebook.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has taken charge of the investigation into the killing, saying that the death was a "terrible tragedy."

Poroshenko wrote on Facebook: "Shock - there are no other words. I knew Pavel personally.”

Poroshenko ordered investigators to work fast, adding: “Those guilty must be punished.”

Sheremet, who had worked for Polish Radio, had lived in Kiev for several years.

He was the founder of news website Belarusian Partisan, which was critical of the Belarusian authorities.

Poland’s onet.pl news website said that Sheremet had suffered repression at the hands of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime, adding that the journalist had also written articles critical of the Russian authorities.

Sheremet, born in Minsk, was stripped of his Belarusian nationality in 2010 by the authorities, who said the move was prompted by the journalist obtaining Russian nationality.

(pk)

Source: PAP/onet.pl