Tymoshenko is released once again, this time by a Supreme Court ruling (04/08/01)

Tymoshenko is released once again, this time by a Supreme Court ruling

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine's Supreme Court suspended a lower court ruling on April 2 and ordered the release of Yulia Tymoshenko from under guard at the hospital where she is being treated for gastrointestinal ailments.

It was the third court ruling in less than a week on the status of Ms. Tymoshenko, a key political leader of the anti-Kuchma opposition who was arrested in mid-February on various charges in connection with the business dealings of the firm she once ran.

Ms. Tymoshenko's attorney, Viktor Shvets, said he had based his successful appeal to the highest criminal court in the land on the secretive manner in which the municipal court came to its decision, an argument that Ukraine's Supreme Court supported. He explained that the illegal decision to re-incarcerate Ms. Tymoshenko was made during a court hearing held late in the night and to which neither she nor her attorney was invited.

"They neither bothered to inform us nor to allow us to become familiar with the appeal of the procurator general," explained Mr. Shvets. "The Constitution of Ukraine guarantees the right to a defense, openness of the judicial process and the equality of its participants."

Supreme Court representative Liana Shliaposhnykova said the decision would remain in effect until the Supreme Court completes it review of the case.

The ruling came after a municipal court decided in favor of an appeal by the Procurator General's Office on March 30 to rearrest Ms. Tymoshenko, which overturned a lower court ruling three days earlier that had freed her from prison. After the ruling of the Kyiv City Court, Ms. Tymoshenko's hospital room was put under guard with a prison matron ordered to be present in her room around the clock and her telephone access was blocked.

Ms. Tymoshenko initially was released from prison after six weeks of confinement when a Kyiv District Court decided the former first vice prime minister and ex-chairman of United Energy Systems was not likely to flee the country to avoid criminal prosecution.

In mid-January the Procurator General's Office had leveled myriad charges against Ms. Tymoshenko, including extortion, smuggling, forgery and tax evasion, which she allegedly committed while head of UES, at one time the largest oil and gas trading firm in Ukraine. About a week later she was fired from her position in the government by President Leonid Kuchma and then arrested on February 13.

The district court that initially released her had rejected assertions by public prosecutors that her failure to appear for questioning - even though she had informed them she was ill - was adequate proof that Ms. Tymoshenko was not willing to cooperate with the investigation into her case.

After the Supreme Court decision, the public prosecutor issued an order barring Ms. Tymoshenko from leaving Kyiv. She voluntarily turned over two passports, which she had stated she would do as proof that she would not leave the country "dead or alive," as she put it.

While some political pundits are hailing the decision to free Ms. Tymoshenko as evidence of the independence of the court system, most experts acknowledge that her release was merely a continuing series of politically inspired tactics.

They pointed out that Supreme Court Chief Judge Vitalii Boiko was appointed by National Deputy Oleksander Moroz, an opposition leader aligned with Ms. Tymoshenko, when Mr. Moroz was the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. Mr. Boiko not only reviewed Ms. Tymoshenko's case personally but also made the ruling in her favor.

Ms. Tymoshenko, whose lawyer said she would remain in the hospital to continue to receive treatment for stomach ailments, said the municipal court decision to effectively put her under house arrest in the hospital was made after she criticized President Kuchma. During a press conference at the hospital a day after her release, Ms. Tymoshenko said she would continue to push for the resignation of Mr. Kuchma and that there are suitable candidates to replace him, including Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko from the political right and National Deputy Moroz from the left.

That same day Ms. Tymoshenko met with the representative of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Hanna Severinsen, who was in Ukraine at the time to gather information on a report she is to submit to PACE on Ukraine's success in fulfilling promises it made to the human rights parliament when it took membership in 1995. Ms. Severinsen said she had discussed the political crisis and problems with corruption in Ukraine with the former vice prime minister.

On April 3, after her return to Strasbourg, France, Ms. Severinsen expressed concern over the events surrounding Ms. Tymoshenko.

"Ms. Tymoshenko was freed on the eve of my visit and rearrested on my departure," said Ms. Severinsen, according to Interfax-Ukraine. "She was not in the best of health when I met her, and I was shocked to hear that she had been held in solitary confinement without adequate medical treatment."

The PACE rapporteur, who has criticized the Kuchma administration often in the past, said she welcomed the decision of Ukraine's Supreme Court, which she thought would reduce tensions in the country, and expressed hope that "a fair and equitable judicial procedure" would follow.

Opposition leaders also hailed Ms. Tymoshenko's release, even as they and the president's forces began to take serious steps to bring the two sides to a negotiating table to resolve the political crisis surrounding the disappearance and death of journalist Heorhii Gongadze, which has paralyzed the administration since Mr. Moroz released audiotapes on which the voices of Mr. Kuchma and highly placed political appointees are heard discussing the journalists disappearance and other criminal conspiracies.

The Forum for National Salvation, a civic organization consisting of representatives of some 25 political organizations, which has slowly become the driving force of the anti-Kuchma movement, on March 30 issued a list of requirements that it said must be fulfilled before it would negotiate with the Kuchma administration, including the demand that the president head the administration's delegation in the talks. It also demanded the dismissal of Procurator General Mykhailo Potebenko; Mr. Kuchma's chief of staff, Volodymyr Lytvyn; National Security and Defense Council Secretary Yevhen Marchuk, Tax Administration Chairman Mykola Azarov; and National TV Company President Vadym Dolhanov.

Forum leaders also said they would push for European mediation of the talks, noting that they are not opposed to an offer made earlier by Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski to serve as moderator. They made it clear the end goal was not necessarily the resignation of the president, but a change in the way political power is currently organized.

Meanwhile, President Kuchma stated unequivocally that he would not talk with any opposition unless its organization is registered properly and only if the demands are realistic.

"What is the purpose of sitting down with people who demand my resignation? What are we going to talk about?" queried the president on April 3 during a press conference with regional media.

He rejected scenarios that hold he may strike a deal and resign in the early fall and asserted that he had no intention of leaving office until November 2004, when his second term ends.

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