A 45-year-old man of Ukrainian nationality was arrested in the German town of Heinsberg as the alleged perpetrator of the murder of, former advisor to the former president of that country, shot at the doors of a school in the Madrid town of Pozuelo de Alarcón. It happened in May 2025.
Sources close to the investigation informed EFE that the detainee had been identified for some time until the arrest was now made.
and in the head on May 21, 2025 after leaving his children at the American School in that Madrid town, near the capital, a crime for which the Police searched for three people involved, including the shooter, who fired at least nine shots and fled, according to the number of shell casings found in the area.
He informed her this Wednesday in a statement of the arrest of the alleged perpetrator of the murder, who according to the investigations carried out to date, would be the person who fired the shots at the doors of the educational center.
The investigation, carried out by the Spanish Police, remains open.
Homicide specialists from the Madrid Police Headquarters traveled to Germany to carry out this arrest, with the collaboration of the BKA, the German Special Operations Group.
A European arrest warrant and another European investigation warrant have been issued to search the detainee’s home, as detailed by the Police. In charge of the judicial investigation of the case, which is under secrecy, is a Pozuelo de Alarcón Court.
Andriy Portnov
hunt the man
Since May last year, investigators have been searching for those responsible for the death of Portnov, 52 years old and sanctioned by the US since 2021 for influencing the courts and undermining reforms in the Ukrainian judicial system when he was legal advisor to former President Yanukovych (2010-2014).
The agents’ hypothesis when this crime happened is that the murder was committed by three people: on the one hand, the shooter, and on the other, two accomplices, who would have facilitated the escape from the vicinity of the educational center.
Portnov was shot to death when he was about to get into his vehicle, a high-end black Mercedes, after dropping his children off at school. His body was found shortly after by a person who alerted the Police.
Yanukovych’s former advisor fled Ukraine along with the former pro-Russian president himself in February 2014 under pressure from protesters of the so-called Maidan revolution, who for months protested in the streets against that administration’s decision not to sign the agreement with the EU.
He was considered by many the architect of Yanukovic’s judicial reforms and, like his boss and other senior officials in that administration, Portnov was accused of treason, but unlike the former he was never convicted in Ukraine, where he returned to live when the president won the elections in 2019.
