All three defendants in the case are also asked to be placed under probation supervision for three years. Property confiscation is also asked for Babenko and Uļmans, accused of ordering the murder.
The debate is one of the final stages before the court goes to prepare the verdict.
Insolvency administrator Bunkus was shot dead in his Range Rover on the morning of May 30 2018 in Mežaparks near the Riga Brethren Cemetery. In May 2022, several years after Bunkus' murder, the police announced that they had managed to establish the chain of persons involved in Bunkus' murder, from the ordering party to the organizer and the executor.
The investigation into one of the largest contract killings in the history of the Latvian State Police was completed on November 24 2022. The police asked for the prosecution of four persons - three Latvian citizens and one Russian citizen.
The prosecutor indicted three persons - one for instigating or ordering the murder, one for instigating and aiding the murder, and one for committing the murder. In addition, the perpetrator of the murder was also charged with carrying and transporting a firearm and firearm ammunition without a relevant permit and disclosing information obtained in pre-trial criminal proceedings without the permission of the investigator or prosecutor until the conclusion of those proceedings, having been warned not to disclose the relevant information.
The mastermind of the murder has not been charged as he died a violent death. The man was allegedly Genādijs Vaļagins, a member of the once powerful Ivans Haritonovs' criminal gang in the 1990s. He was shot dead in Plavnieki, Riga, in March 2022.
It was established that the motive of the murder was dislike of the administrator in the performance of his professional duties.
