Procurator General opens new criminal case against Tymoshenko (08/11/02)

Procurator General opens new criminal case against Tymoshenko

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The Procurator General's Office of Ukraine announced on August 2 that it had opened another criminal case against National Deputy Yulia Tymoshenko on charges of embezzlement of funds from the purchase of Russian natural gas, conspiracy to organize a fraud and abuse of office as a minister in government.

Ms. Tymoshenko quickly responded that the charges are political reprisal for an announced plan to organize mass demonstrations this fall demanding early presidential elections. The faction Mrs. Tymoshenko heads in the Verkhovna Rada, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc has spearheaded the action, which the Socialist, Communist and Our Ukraine factions have said they would support.

"These are old charges that have existed for several years now," explained Ms. Tymoshenko at a hastily called press conference at the offices of the Batkivschyna Party, to which she belongs. "The Sviatoshyn [Kyiv district] court ruled them null and void," she added.

Ms. Tymosehnko said that she is certain that a vote will be organized in the Verkhovna Rada to remove the immunity from criminal prosecution she enjoys as a legislator, which, if successful, could lead to her arrest and trial.

"Whether I have immunity or not will not change my intentions [to strive for pre-term presidential elections]," Ms. Tymoshenko emphasized.

Recently appointed First Deputy Procurator General Viktor Shokin, who has been assigned the task of reviewing the several high-profile investigations that his agency has failed to close in the past several years, including the murders of journalists Heorhii Gongadze and Ihor Aleksandrov, rejected Ms. Tymoshenko's assertions and underscored that he is not dabbling in politics.

"The investigation is not a step by authorities to warn the opposition not to stage protest actions they have promised," explained Mr. Shokin. "The fact that the investigation began immediately after the announcement by the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc leader about the planned autumn actions is a banal coincidence."

Mr. Shokin said he did not completely understand the outrage and surprise voiced by Ms. Tymoshenko and her supporters because the procurator's office had been conducting a well-publicized preliminary investigation for months, which was known even when the previous charges against Ms. Tymoshenko and her husband were dismissed by the Kyiv District Court this past spring.

On May 8 Ms. Tymoshenko had announced that the Sviatoshyn District Court had exonerated her of charges of bribing a government official, illegally importing contraband and attempting to carry large sums of money out of the country. At the time she said the court had also dismissed charges of theft of government resources in large amounts against her husband, Oleksander. The Procurator General's Office then announced that it did not accept Ms. Tymoshenko's version of what the decision meant and would continue to press its case against her along other avenues.

Ms. Tymoshenko, who founded and developed United Energy Systems, what was once Ukraine's largest oil and gas trading company, was a close associate of former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who has sat in United States detention for more than two years since attempting to enter the U.S. illegally and then requesting political asylum. Mr. Lazarenko is under investigation for money laundering.

Ms. Tymoshenko has been a fervent political opponent of President Leonid Kuchma since she and Mr. Lazarenko formed the Hromada Party and a shadow government after the latter was fired as prime minister. Lately she has spearheaded protest movements that attempted to highlight President Leonid Kuchma's alleged corruption and involvement in the death of Mr. Gongadze, and to have the president impeached on those allegations.

Ms. Tymoshenko vowed to continue the fight against the Kuchma administration after voters unexpectedly expressed strong support for her in the March 31 parliamentary elections, giving the political bloc she headed 7.24 percent of the general vote and 21 seats in the new Verkhovna Rada.

On July 26 the four parliamentary factions not aligned with President Kuchma - the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Our Ukraine, the Socialists and the Communists - issued a statement that they would officially announce on August 24, which is Ukrainian Independence Day, a movement to organize mass nationwide demonstrations in the fall to force authorities to hold early presidential elections.

While some Our Ukraine leaders have expressed their disapproval of the proposition, the heads of all four factions signed the statement. The decision to take such a radical political step, especially after the anti-presidential protests of spring 2000 ended in the bloody March 9 confrontation between demonstrators and militia before the Presidential Administration Building, is based on what the respected weekly newspaper, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, called growing evidence that the pro-presidential forces were going to adopt on a broad basis the tactics used in the parliamentary elections of March 31.

The newspaper said there may even be an attempt by Mr. Kuchma to run for a third term, which would be done with an explanation that such a move is constitutionally legal because it would only be the president's second term in office since the new Constitution of Ukraine was approved in 1996. The 1996 document limits the Ukrainian president to two terms.

In its July 27 issue the newspaper quoted National Deputy Roman Bezsmertnyi, once Mr. Kuchma's former political operative in the Verkhovna Rada and today coordinator of the political work of the Our Ukraine faction headed by Viktor Yushchenko, saying there is little hope that the presidential elections of 2004 could be free and fair.

"Today the most effective dirty political strategies are being developed and polished, which could be used in the upcoming presidential elections: removal of candidates from registration lists, bribery, blackmail; "cloning" of candidates, officially overturning unfavorable election results," noted Mr. Bezsmertnyi.

The newspaper asserted that the appointment of Viktor Medvedchuk as Mr. Kuchma's new chief of staff would allow the presidential election team to make judicial appointments that would help it attain jurisprudential support for the results it wanted to attain.

Ms. Tymoshenko said she had already laid plans for the autumn demonstrations and had organized 23,000 "agitation brigades" throughout the oblasts of the country to coordinate the protests.

"Among other things, they will instruct people that they are not being mobilized for civil war, but to utilize their constitutional right to protest; that they must peacefully and constitutionally tell Kuchma, 'no,' " explained Ms. Tymoshenko.

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