The defense team of former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko will appeal against a ruling of Kyiv Court of Appeals that upheld Lutsenko's sentence of four years in prison.
"We can see what is going on in the country, and how our judicial system is working. We think that today a ruling was not pronounced on Yuriy Lutsenko case, a ruling was pronounced on the court system of Ukraine. They are unable to make an independent decision. They are just fulfilling tasks… Of course we will appeal [against the ruling]," Lutsenko’s lawyer Ihor Fomin told journalists in Kyiv on May 16.
"Of course we will file an appeal. We have to use all possibilities and all means of national protection, after which we will appeal to the European Court [of Human Rights], and under the current state of affairs I am hundred percent sure that we will win this case at the European Court," the lawyer said.
Kyiv Court of Appeals on May 16 upheld a verdict issued by Kyiv’s Pechersky District Court against Lutsenko, who was sentenced to four years in prison.
On February 27, 2012, Pechersky District Court in Kyiv found Lutsenko guilty of committing official crimes and sentenced him to four years in prison, with confiscation of his property.
The essence of the charges lies in the fact that Lutsenko, while serving as interior minister, allegedly facilitated the accrual of an illegal pension to his driver, Leonid Prystupliuk, the allocation of housing to him, as well as his inclusion in the operational services department.
Another episode of charges concerns the extension of an investigative case concerning the driver of former SBU First Deputy Chief Volodymyr Satsiuk as part of an investigation into the poisoning of then presidential candidate Viktor Yuschenko.
