KIEV, September 25 - RAPSI. Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko has refuted former presidential bodyguard Mykola Melnichenko's accusation that he was involved in MP Yevheny Shcherban's assassination, according to Lazarenko's statement provided to the UNIAN news agency by his attorney Marina Dovgopola.

Earlier, Melnichenko submitted a statement to the Prosecutor General's Office that the former PM was involved in the murder. He also posted a message in this regard on his Facebook page.

Melnichenko claimed to have audio recordings related to the assassination of the MP and Aton financial corporation head, who was shot dead along with his wife and airport staff at a Donetsk airport in 1996.

"Lazarenko is named as the individual who ordered the murder," he said. "Kushnir, a criminal kingpin, was the organizer, while Pyotr Kirichenko, Lazarenko's business partner, and Yulia Tymoshenko, paid for the execution of the crime."

Lazarenko called Melnichenko's statement yet another display of black PR against him. He added that the Prosecutor General's Office is trying to use fragments of Melnichenko's records as evidence to prove the former prime minister's guilt. Lazarenko said the former presidential bodyguard's statement was provoked by other individuals.

Melnichenko became widely known after he recorded an individual who sounded like former President Leonid Kuchma giving orders in his office to "settle affairs" with journalist Georgy Gongadze, whose beheaded body was later found in the Kiev Region in autumn 2000.

As a result of the audio recording, the former president was accused of involvement in the journalist's murder. However, the court deemed the evidence against Kuchma to be illegal, as the recording was taken without permission.

Tymoshenko is presently involved in the Shcherban case as a witness.

However, First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin said she may be charged with involvement in his assassination by late September. In October 2011, Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of power in signing 2009 gas contracts signed Russia. Tymoshenko is serving her sentence in a Kharkiv women's prison. She has been receiving treatment at a Kharkiv hospital since May 2012. She was diagnosed with a spinal disc herniation.

In early 2002, eight individuals were arrested on suspicion of the MP's assassination.

All eight were found guilty and three were sentenced to life imprisonment.