The Unified Press Service for courts in Russia's second city, St. Petersburg, said on December 11 that Vitaly Akishin, who was found guilty of murdering lawmaker Galina Starovoitova in 1998, has officially filed papers for a transfer to an open prison -- a dormitory-like facility -- after serving two-thirds of his sentence without violating the prison's internal order regulations.
Starovoitova, a democratic reformer, and co-chair of the Democratic Russia party, was shot dead near the door to her apartment in St. Petersburg on November 20, 1998. Her aide, Ruslan Linkov, was injured in the attack but survived.
Akishin was sentenced in May 2005 to 23 1/2 years in prison in the case, while his co-defendent, Yury Kolchin, was handed a 20-year prison term on the same charge.
In late August 2015, a court in St. Petersburg sentenced former Russian lawmaker Mikhail Glushschenko to 17 years in prison for his role in organizing the high-profile murder that stunned Russia and sent shock waves abroad during Boris Yeltsin's presidency.
Glushchenko made a deal with investigators in March 2015 where he claimed businessman Vladimir Barsukov (aka Kumanin), the alleged head of the notorious Tambov organized crime group, ordered Starovoitova's killing after she blocked him from establishing ties with a number of corrupt city officials.
Barsukov was charged in 2019 with taking part in the organization of the assassination. His trial on that charge is pending while he serves a 23-year prison term he was handed in an unrelated case.
It remains unclear who in fact ordered the assassination of Starovoitova.
In 2018, Starovoitova's sister, Olga Starovoitova, told RFE/RL that Barsukov might have been involved in her sister's killing but that it is unlikely he ordered the hit.
She said there could be several layers of people involved in ordering and organizing the killing, adding that she suspects specific people but will not name them because she believes in the presumption of innocence and does not have proof.
Barsukov was a powerful figure in St. Petersburg in the 1990s and was vice president of the Petersburg Fuel Company.
Vladimir Putin, now president and at the time a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, awarded the city’s lucrative gasoline concession to the company in 1994.