Ukraine opens new tax trial against Tymoshenko
KHARKIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian court opened fresh criminal hearings Thursday against jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko in a case set to further dent the ex-Soviet nation’s EU membership hopes.
The flamboyant but divisive 2004 Orange Revolution leader faces tax evasion and embezzlement charges relating to the time she spent leading a gas trading company in the 1990s before the launch of her dramatic political career.
The 51-year-old is already not due for release until 2018 for arranging an expensive gas deal with Russia while serving as premier and could now see her sentence extended until 2023 of found guilty and given the full prison term.
Ukraine’s defiant decision to push ahead with the new trial has infuriated Brussels as well as some domestic critics who view the cases against Tymoshenko as a political vendetta of her presidential rival Viktor Yanukovych.
Thursday’s hearing was attended by France’s human rights ambassador Francois Zimeray and dozens of other Tymoshenko well-wishers who crowded into the packed court room.
Any new conviction would also substantially complicate efforts by her backers and EU officials to win the ex-premier’s release from a women’s prison in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv where the new case is being heard.
The European Union has already delayed signing a partnership agreement with Ukraine that would have moved it closer to full membership in the bloc.
It has also made clear that how Tymoshenko is treated would play a decisive role in the two sides’ future relations — a warning that has recently seen Ukraine hold closer cooperation talks with energy-rich Russia.
Yanukovych argues he is only pursuing EU calls to root out corruption and has no right to personally intervene in the outcome or conduct of the case.
Tymoshenko told the court ahead of Thursday’s preliminary hearing that debilitating back pains will bar her from attending the opening.
“I ask for the preliminary hearing in this case to be conducted in my absence because of my poor health,” Tymoshenko said in a letter read out by Judge Kostiantyn Sadovsky.
She has already been visited in jail by European and Canadian doctors but has been denied by prison officials to receive treatment at a special clinic in Germany.
Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Nina Korpachyova said the country’s European Court of Human Rights obligations required Tymoshenko to receive “a normal course of treatment before appearing in court” for the full trial.
“But I doubt that this will be the position taken by our national court,” Korpachyova was quoted as saying in Kyiv by Interfax.
Tymoshenko is suspected of embezzling $405.5 million of funds in cooperation with another government member while heading the United Energy Systems of Ukraine power provider.
She is accused of reassigning a debt owed by her company to the Russian defence ministry to the Ukrainian budget and then transferring the sum to herself and her government ally Pavlo Lazarenko.
Tymoshenko was arrested on related charges in 2001 once she formally entered politics but then quickly released and cleared.
Lazarenko for his part is in US detention after being convicted in 2006 of embezzlement and money laundering.
Ukrainian prosecutors suspect Lazarenko of involvement in the 1996 murder of a local businessman and want him extradited from the United States.
Officials have previously hinted that they have enough evidence in the case to call in Tymoshenko as a witness in the murder trial.
Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved.
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