Barry Ping (left) abd Ganna Ziuzina (right) were married in Ukraine in 2007
Police investigating the suspicious death of a British businessman in Ukraine have concluded he was the victim of a hit and run.
Barry Pring, 47, was struck by a car outside a restaurant while celebrating his first wedding anniversary.
But his friends have claimed he was murdered by his wife, Ganna Ziuzina.
She was dubbed the ‘Black Widow’ after a British coroner ruled that Mr Pring was ‘unlawfully killed’.
However, a new investigation in Ukraine says he died in a traffic accident, The Times reported.
The Coroner’s ruling said the ‘speeding car’ hit the IT entrepreneur after he was ‘tricked’ into stepping into the road while drunk.
A fresh inquest next month will hear that Ukrainian police no longer think he was murdered because they believe a witness who claimed to see a car hit Mr Pring had lied – and may not even have been there at all.
Officers say the witness – Svetlana Dudko – was not spoken to by them on the night of the accident, and Ms Ziuzina’s supporters say she was actually tracked down by private investigators hired by his family.
Mr Pring met his 28-year-old wife, a pole dancer, on a dating website and they married in Kiev in 2007. They were marking their first anniversary on February 16, 2008, with a dinner in the village of Mila near the Ukrainian capital when he was hit.
Ganna Ziuzina (pictured above) was alleged to have only been interested in Mr Pring ‘for his money’
His widow and his family have fought a legal battle over his £1.5million estate.
Shaughan Pring, his brother, told an inquest in January 2017 that Miss Ziuzina ‘was only interested in Barry for his money’.
Miss Ziuzina (pictured above) was seen posing for a pictured with a gun
The inquest in Exeter also heard that Mr Pring’s best man, Peter Clifford, thought that Miss Ziuzina ‘either arranged for, or was complicit in, his murder’.
Coroner Elizabeth Earland said that Mr Pring had been killed unlawfully when he was tricked into standing on the wrong side of the road to hail a taxi while his guard was ‘lowered by inebriation’.
The car that killed Mr Pring ‘had stolen licence plates and did not brake or stop’, the coroner said.
However, her verdict of unlawful killing was overturned when she admitted she did not give Miss Ziuzina enough of a chance to attend the hearing, and that she had allowed hearsay evidence.
Miss Ziuzina is expected to give evidence at a new inquest next month.
Police in Ukraine initially investigated Mr Pring’s death as a traffic offence before reclassifying the incident as murder. But their latest investigation says a key witness account of Mr Pring’s death that said a car hit him at high speed with its lights off did not tally with other statements from the scene.
Coroner Elizabeth Earland said that Mr Pring (left) had been killed unlawfully when he was tricked into standing on the wrong side of the road (Mr Pring and Miss Ziuzina, above on their wedding day)
In fact, police believe Svetlana Dudko, the supposed witness, ‘was not present at all’. Their report said: ‘The evidence gathered confirms the fact of a traffic accident.
Miss Ziuzina (pictured above) is expected to give evidence at a new inquest next month
‘At the same time there is not sufficient evidence to consider a deliberate murder using the vehicle.’
Miss Dudko, a singer, did not speak to police the night Mr Pring died, according to the report. It also contains a witness statement, which is supported by a British expert, that says Mr Pring was probably hit by a lorry.
Home Office pathologist Gyan Fernando conducted a post-mortem examination in Britain, and found that Mr Pring’s injuries suggested he was ‘run over by a heavy vehicle such as a truck’.
Mr Pring’s widow, who uses the name Julianna Moore, was awarded £40,000 by the coroner for legal costs to challenge the unlawful killing verdict. She now lives in Marbella, Spain, with her British partner, and declined to comment to reporters.