The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office has said that former Ukrainian Prime Minister and leader of the Batkivschyna Party Yulia Tymoshenko misled the public by saying at a meeting of the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv on Monday that Liliya Frolova, the state prosecutor on a criminal case opened against Tymoshenko, allegedly said at a briefing that the accused would be sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment.
"Yulia Tymoshenko openly lied, distorting the information," reads a report released by the media liaison department of the Prosecutor General’s Office on Monday.
The department also released a shorthand report of the speech by Frolova at the briefing.
According to the text of the shorthand report, when asked by a correspondent "which sentence the official prosecution would impose on Yulia Tymoshenko," Frolova answered: "In general currently it is impossible to speak about any sentence as the procedure of judicial investigation has not started yet. We can’t speak now for the purposes of a full, comprehensive and objective consideration. We must investigate everything that was achieved at the stage of a pre-trial investigation, assess this and then we will decide on our position." When again asked by the correspondent "What does Article 365 of the Criminal Code maximum foresee?" Frolova answered: "[It foresees] 10 years of imprisonment," the Prosecutor General’s Office reported.