KIEV: Prosecutors on Friday accused Ukraine’s jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko of organising the 1996 murder of a powerful lawmaker and warned that a guilty verdict could put her behind bars for life.
Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka said the fiery 52-year-old has been informed by prosecutors that she and another former prime minister detained in the United States are formal suspects in the murder of deputy Yevgen Shcherban.
“We have collected evidence from the pre-trial investigation indicating that Tymoshenko really did order this murder together with (former prime minister Pavlo) Lazarenko,” Pshonka told reporters. “Today, an investigative team from the prosecutor general’s office visited Tymoshenko in order to hand her (her documents on) suspicion of having committed a crime.”
He said the charismatic but divisive opposition leader has been named as a suspect under an article of the criminal code that meant she could spend the rest of her life in jail. Tymoshenko’s defence once again denied her involvement and called the charges political.
“This is not a legal case — it is a political one,” defence attorney Sergiy Vlasenko said.
Tymoshenko was controversially sentenced to a seven-year jail term in 2011 amid Western outrage at her treatment by the government of President Viktor Yanukovych — her recent bitter foe. She is being treated for back pain in a hospital outside her prison in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
AFP
