Tymoshenko claims she's been cleared (05/12/02)

Tymoshenko claims she's been cleared

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Yulia Tymoshenko announced on May 8 that a Kyiv district court had exonerated her and her husband, and dismissed all charges against them. Ukraine's Procurator General's Office rejected the assertion the same day and stated that its investigation into the couple's business dealings was continuing.

The court made its decision after an appeal from the Tymoshenkos to review and resolve the criminal matter, a tactic that Ms. Tymoshenko explained is allowed by Ukrainian law, but an assertion the Procurator General's Office contests.

"The court ordered all charges, without exception to be dropped," explained Ms. Tymoshenko during a news conference.

Generally acknowledged as the richest woman in Ukraine, Ms. Tymoshenko recently won election to the Parliament at the top of the slate of the Tymoshenko Bloc, a center-right oriented political organization that consists of politicians and parties that are in opposition to the administration of President Leonid Kuchma. The parliamentary mandate gives her immunity from criminal prosecution.

Ms. Tymoshenko, today the president's most outspoken critic, has accused state and law enforcement officials of persecuting her and her family over her political stance.

In February 2000, merely weeks after she was forced from her position as the first vice prime minister in the government of Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, Mrs. Tymoshenko was charged with bribing a government official, illegally importing contraband and attempting to carry large sums of money out of the country.

The charges were based on her business dealings as founder and president of United Energy Systems, an energy trading company that once had close ties to Pavlo Lazarenko. She was specifically accused of illegal payments to Mr. Lazarenko when he was prime minister, of illegally importing natural gas from Russia and of attempting to carry $26,000 out of Ukraine. Ms. Tymoshenko was in and out of detention for about six months before an appeals court ordered her set free because she was not considered a potential fugitive.

In September 2000, her husband, Oleksander, who took over as head of the firm after Mrs. Tymoshenko entered politics, was arrested and detained for nearly a year on charges of theft from government resources in large amounts and bribing a government official. He was specifically accused of failing to pay for salvage he had taken from a government-owned agricultural machinery supply house in the amount of $200,000 and also for paying bribes to Mr. Lazarenko. Both charges were based on incidents that had occurred eight years earlier.

On April 30 the Sviatoshyn District Court in Kyiv dismissed four charges against Ms. Tymoshenko and the two against her husband. The press largely ignored the matter, which is one reason Ms. Tymoshenko decided to bring attention to it herself, she explained.

"When my husband and I were charged, the television channels carried the news from morning to night, but when we were exonerated, not one news service mentioned it," explained Ms. Tymoshenko.

The 40-year old politician, with her husband sitting aside her, read the reasons for the dismissal of each charge from what she said were the court documents on the decision. She said the documents explained that in the matter of the bribes the court found that beyond circumstantial evidence the prosecution had given no concrete evidence that tied the Tymoshenkos to any money illegally given to Mr. Lazarenko.

She said they also explained that there was no documented proof that she had not legally declared the U.S. dollars she was attempting to transport out of Ukraine from a Dnipropetrovsk airport in 1998, or that the paperwork that allowed United Energy Systems to import natural gas purchased from Russia's Gazprom in 1995-1996 was forged. In addition, the court had determined that Mr. Tymoshenko had paid for the purchase of products from the government agrofirm Ukragrotekservis and had received documented proof supporting the fact.

Hours after the Tymoshenkos' press conference ended, Deputy Procurator General Mykola Obikhod, while acknowledging that the Sviatoshyn District Court had ruled in favor of the Tymoshenkos, rejected the court's authority and the legal force the decisions carried. He told a hastily called press conference that the court's ruling was "illegal" and "not enforceable."

"Yulia Tymoshenko again is speeding ahead of the process in her interpretation of the judicial verdict," explained Mr. Obikhod. He said the Procurator General's Office had filed an appeal with the Kyiv Oblast Court in which it called the district court decision premature in so far as the investigation into the business affairs of the Tymoshenkos and United Energy Systems continues. The state prosecutor said that no court has the right to dismiss a case until an investigation is officially completed.

Nonetheless, Ms. Tymoshenko, who said during her press conference that she is not concerned about further appeals or legal proceedings against her or her family because the district court had "adequately analyzed the charges and concluded that these were criminal actions directed against us," also stated that she would use her authority as a deputy and a leader of a political force in the new Parliament to scrutinize more closely the activities of law enforcement agencies, including the situation surrounding the imprisoned former chairman of the Slavianskyi Bank, Borys Feldman, and the treatment of underage prisoners in Ukraine's penal system, which she called atrocious. She announced that she would form a citizens' committee in support of her work in that area.

| Home Page |