Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko caused a flap on Friday when she brought her deputies running from parliament with an alarm call that state security police were raiding party headquarters.
Tymoshenko, who a year ago lost a run-off for the presidency to President Viktor Yanukovich after a bitter battle, sent a Twitter message saying: "The SBU are now trying to enter our party offices to search and remove the central party server (computer)."
Deputies of Tymoshenko’s Batkyvshchina party raced out of parliament on hearing her alarm and headed to her headquarters about two km (1.25 miles away).
A spokeswoman for the state security service, the SBU, denied her account, however. "Our people are not down there. This is complete nonsense," the spokeswoman said.
Journalists who went to the building saw no police outside, though a pro-Tymoshenko deputy said SBU agents had earlier been there.
"They introduced themselves as SBU police. They said they had a prosecutor’s warrant to carry out a search with the aim of removing the main information server of the Batkyvshchina party," said Andriy Kozhemyakin, deputy head of the Batkyvshchina faction.
Tymoshenko is under investigation for alleged abuse of office while she was prime minister from 2007-10. She says Yanukovich is conducting a political vendetta and denies the charges against her.
She has been ordered not to leave Ukraine and is regularly summoned by prosecutors for questioning.
The bizarre incident on Friday increased political tension ahead of Feb. 25, when her rival will celebrate a year in power, talking to Ukrainians via a television phone-in programme.
Allies of Tymoshenko inside the building said they had locked themselves in when SBU officials showed up.
Tymoshenko, in a subsequent Twitter message, said an "information war" against her was under way. "The first attack was beaten off. They (SBU) got a phone call and they ran off."
Kozhemyakin said: "We came here and will be on permanent watch day and night from now on so that there will not be political terror like that which was rolled out against Batkyvshchina today."
A former interior minister under Tymoshenko, Yuri Lutsenko, is being held on charges of abuse of office involving embezzlement of state funds, while former environment minister Georgy Filipchuk also faces criminal charges.
Another Tymoshenko ally, former economy minister Bohdan Danylyshin, fled Ukraine and has been granted political asylum in the Czech republic.
