MOSCOW, July 22 (RAPSI) — Krasnoyarsk businessman Anatoly Bykov has been indicted on murder-for-hire charges, the press service of the Investigative Committee told RAPSI.

Investigators allege that in the autumn of 2004 Bykov met with his acquaintance and gave him instructions to kill businessman Andrey Nekolov. The would-be killer asked $50,000 for murder, according to the statement.

An attempt was made on Nekolov in 2004, but the businessman survived. The killer took a break, investigators say, but implemented his plan in 2005. The defendant, citing the failed first attempt, has reduced the award to $10,000, the statement reads.

Nevertheless, the businessman denies his involvement in the crime. 

Investigators plan to notify the victims, the defendant and his defense about the completion of the preliminary probe into the case and provide its materials in the near future.

By now, the Sverdlovsky District Court in Krasnoyarsk has drawn a jury panel in yet another case against Bykov, who is charged with masterminding double homicide in 1994, and is in detention.

According to the Russian Investigative Committee, in the first half of 1994, Alexander Naumov, a 23-year old member of a criminal group headed by Bykov, had a conflict with the gang leader because of unjust, according to him, dividing of the joint criminal income. Later, Bykov’s car was exploded. The businessman suspected Naumov and his friend Kirill Voytenko of the blast organization and decided to kill them. He ordered his acquaintance Vladimir Tatarenkov to organize the murder; the latter in turn involved his gang members in the crime. On July 24, 1994, Naumov and Voytenko were shot dead.