Monaco bombing attack suspect found shot dead in Ukraine, officials say

By Daria Tarasova-Markina, Victoria Butenko, Lauren Kent, CNN

(CNN) — The mystery surrounding last week’s bombing attack in Monaco deepened on Tuesday as Ukrainian authorities revealed that the main suspect was found shot dead, with a Ukrainian intelligence officer and former law enforcement official suspected of her murder.

Interpol previously named the main bombing suspect as 39-year-old Anastasiia Berezovska, who was born in Ukraine and recently resided in Germany. Her body was found with gunshot wounds to the head and pistol casings, according to police and the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office.

Ukrainian authorities said they detained two men on suspicion of murdering Berezovska “by prior conspiracy.”

Police said that one of the men – a current employee of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate – confessed to the murder of Berezovska and claimed that the second suspect, who is a former law enforcement officer, was an accomplice.

Berezovska arrived in Ukraine on July 1, and she communicated with her family and the two men, according to a statement from Ukrainian National Police on Tuesday. Investigators learned that both men had repeatedly made bank transfers and cryptocurrency payments to Berezovska, which prompted police to treat them “as individuals potentially involved in the attempted murder in Monaco.”

Police said urgent search measures were carried out against the two men in connection with the Monaco attack, during which the active intelligence officer separately confessed to the murder of Berezovska. The police statement said the intelligence officer had not informed his superiors of his contacts with Berezovska or the bank transfers to her, and the suspect also said he had “acted on his own initiative.”

“Additionally, during a search of the former law enforcement officer’s residence, a basement room resembling a torture chamber was discovered,” the police statement said.

The prosecutors office also said that “law enforcement authorities are identifying the instigators and other figures involved in the attempted murder of the family in Monaco.”

CNN has reached out to Monaco police, the Monaco Justice Department and Interpol for comment.

Monaco attack motive still unclear

Last week’s attack in Monaco – in which a bomb exploded in the entranceway of one of the city-state’s ritziest apartment buildings, targeting Ukrainian-born businessman Vadym Yermolaiev – injured three people, including Yermolaiev, a woman and a 13-year-old child.

The identity of the woman and child remain unknown, but the injured woman is not Yermolaiev’s wife. His wife told Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne on Tuesday she was not in the home at the time of the attack and was not hurt.

Although the motive remains unclear, Monaco’s prosecutor Stéphane Thibault previously characterized the bombing as an “attempted assassination,” making it the first bomb assassination attempt ever recorded on Monaco’s highly surveilled, secure streets.

Local authorities said that Berezovska disguised herself as a man as she carried out the attack. A photo emerged of her running away from the scene wearing a black jumper with her hair apparently tucked underneath a black bucket hat.

She later fled to neighboring France, then drove to Italy in a German-registered car that had been rented for the operation, prosecutors said. The sophistication of the bomb used indicates that more than one perpetrator was involved, prosecutors said at the time.

CNN’s Issy Ronald, Stephanie Halasz and Camille Knight contributed to this report.

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