The two are being charged with ordering and organizing fatal acid attack on the Kherson activist.
Kyiv's Dniprovsky District Court has ruled to remand in custody Chairman of Kherson Regional Council Vladyslav Manger and Oleksiy Levin, an aide to a member of the same council, until October 18 on charges of ordering and organizing a fatal acid attack on Kherson activist Kateryna Handziuk on July 31, 2018.
The relevant ruling was handed down by a judge during a court hearing on August 20, which was streamed via Facebook by lawyer Masi Nayyem.
By the court ruling, Manger and Levin were put into custody without the right to bail.
Handziuk murder case
Read alsoVictim of Kherson acid attack activist Kateryna Handziuk dies
The immediate cause of her death was a severed blood clot resulting from the acid attack. Police originally qualified the attack as an attempted murder committed with extreme cruelty, then its status was changed to completed murder. Six suspects were detained, one of whom, Mykola Novikov, was later released from custody as charges against him had been dropped.
On May 7, 2019, the Prosecutor General's Office forwarded to court an indictment against five defendants in the case of the murder: Mykyta Hrabchuk, Volodymyr Vasyanovych, Vyacheslav Vishnevsky, Serhiy Torbin, and Viktor Horbunov.
On June 6, 2019, the court handed down guilty verdicts. Torbin, the organizer of the murder, was sentenced to six years and six months in prison. Hrabchuk, the actual perpetrator of the crime, was sentenced to six years in prison. Accused of aiding, Vasyanovych and Horbunov were sentenced to four and three years in prison, respectively; accomplice Vishnevsky's sentence is four years' imprisonment.
Read alsoUkraine's SBU completes probe into fatal acid attack on Kherson activist Handziuk
On July 28, prosecutors of the Prosecutor General's Office in Ukraine forwarded to court an indictment against Manger and Levin.