Green card winner shot dead by robbers hy

A Ukrainian who emigrated to America last year after winning a green card in a lottery has been shot and killed while fighting off robbers.

Oleg Bosenko, a former Soviet army captain with martial arts training, was killed as he walked home his wife, Larissa, from a subway station in Brooklyn on Wednesday. Mr Bosenko, 38, was hit by three bullets from a .380 calibre semi-automatic pistol and died an hour later in hospital.

Police said that they were searching for a man and a woman who had stolen Mrs Bosenko's purse. Mrs Bosenko was taken to hospital with minor head injuries.

"Apparently Mr Bosenko came to the aid of his wife and kicked at the individual," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

The couple moved to New York from Sumy, Ukraine, last year after winning green cards in an immigration lottery. Mr Bosenko met his wife at the subway station on most nights as she returned from her job at a Manhattan office supplies store.

Mr Bosenko worked as an electrician in Brooklyn and was studying to become a city employee, a family friend, Oleh Filotov, said. He added that the couple had hoped to buy a house. "We don't have those types of opportunities in Ukraine," he said. "They liked it here."