MOSCOW, February 21 (RIA Novosti) – Police in south Russia detained a man on Thursday suspected of ordering the murder of a lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party.

Police said businessman Sergei Krasovsky had been arrested in the Krasnodar region resort of Anapa.

Another eight people were detained earlier this week in connection with the death of Mikhail Pakhomov, 36, a legislator in central Russia’s Lipetsk city parliament.

Pakhmov’s body was found stuffed into a cement barrel in the Moscow Region on Tuesday.

Investigators said on Tuesday they believed Pakhomov, a United Russia party member since 2003, had been murdered over unpaid debts.

Yevgeny Kharitonov, 40, a former Moscow Region housing utilities official, is also suspected of ordering Pakhomov’s murder. He was arrested on Monday on board a flight from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport to Krasnodar as the plane was preparing for take-off.

Kharitonov has so far refused to answer questions posed by investigators and insists on his innocence. He is facing a series of crime scene reenactment experiments and medical examination.

Updates with Kharitonov’s reaction to charges in last paragraph.