Lawyer linked to bank insolvency case shot dead in Riga

RIGA, May 30 (Xinhua) -- A lawyer involved in a notorious high-profile bank insolvency case was shot dead in Riga on Wednesday morning, public television reported.

Lawyer Martins Bunkus was killed as he was driving past the Riga Brethren Cemetery in the quiet suburb of Mezaparks, according to the TV report.

Police representatives confirmed that a murder was committed there at around 8:40 a.m. Wednesday and that the victim was a man who had been driving a white SUV. It is thought that the killer fired the shots from a van also seen in the area.

Vendors selling flowers at the cemetery said they heard several shots.

Investigators were working at the crime scene which has been closed to traffic. A prosecutor who had also arrived there declined to give any comments.

Latvian public television reported in March that Bunkus was one of the lawyers hired as assistants to Armands Rasa, the administrator of the notorious insolvency process of Latvia's Trasta Komercbanka.

Under Rasa's leadership, the costs of the bank's insolvency process grew to nearly 3 million euros in half a year. The insolvency administrator said the money was spent also on other lawyers he had hired as his assistants.

A criminal investigation into the murder is under way. Enditem