Tymoshenko faces murder charge: Ukraine prosecutor
KYIV (AFP) – The legal problems of Ukraine’s jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko mounted on Tuesday after a top prosecutor said he was planning to charge her over the murder of a lawmaker in 1996.
Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin said in a newspaper interview the only obstacle in the way of charging was Tymoshenko’s current hospitalisation for severe back pains but expressed confidence the case would come to court.
Ukrainian MP Yevgen Shcherban was gunned down along with his wife at Donetsk airport in 1996 in a contract killing the Ukrainian legal authorities have also linked to ex-prime minister and former Tymoshenko ally Pavlo Lazarenko.
‘We have enough proof confirming Tymoshenko’s implication in this murder and we are intending to present her with charges,’ Mr Kuzmin told the Ukrainian edition of Kommersant in comments published on Monday.