You're reading: Ukraine court throws out Tymoshenko appeal

A Ukrainian high court on Wednesday, Aug. 29, rejected an appeal by jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko against her conviction for abuse of office, an outcome likely to complicate Ukraine's already poor relations with the West.

“The judges of the court have reached the conclusion that
the appeal cannot be satisfied,” judge Olexander Yelfimov said
delivering an unexpectedly speedy ruling.

Western leaders condemned the seven-year prison term handed
to the 51-year-old opposition leader in October as political
persecution, and blocked strategic agreements with the European
Union on political association and a free-trade zone.

But despite months of chiding by the European Union and the
United States, which see Tymoshenko as a victim of selective
justice, President Viktor Yanukovich has refused to act to
secure her release. No-one had expected her to be released on
Wednesday.

Tymoshenko, known in her heyday for a peasant-style hair
braid and fiery rhetoric, was not present in court because of
persistent back trouble which has kept her confined to a
state-run hospital in eastern Ukraine.

About 300 of her supporters gathered outside the courtroom,
chanting slogans such as “Yulia – Freedom!” and “Keep convicts
inside and get Yulia out!”

In tough remarks last Friday, Yanukovich said he would not
negotiate integration with the EU at the price of allowing it to
interfere in her case.

The release of Tymoshenko – by far the most vibrant
opposition figure on Ukraine’s political landscape – had seemed
even more unlikely given the approach of an Oct. 28 legislative
election.

Yanukovich’s Party of the Regions goes into that election
with the government highly unpopular over reforms that have
increased taxes on small businesses and raised retirement ages,
and it will have to work hard to retain its majority.

GAS DEAL

The abuse of office conviction relates to a gas deal that
Tymoshenko brokered with Russia in 2009 when she was prime
minister. The Yanukovich government says the agreement was
reckless and saddled Ukraine with an enormous price for
strategic supplies of gas which is taking a toll on the heavily
stressed economy.

Ukrainian state prosecutors had urged the court to uphold
her conviction, saying Tymoshenko’s guilt was clearly
established at her Kiev trial last year.

She has denied betraying the national interest. Her defence
lawyers had argued that negotiating the gas agreement with
Russia was a political act which did not amount to criminal
action.

In Wednesday’s judgment, the three-member panel said: “The
judges believe that the previous courts reached correct
decisions on the crimes of Tymoshenko.”

Her daughter Yevgenia, who has been active in seeking
international support for her mother’s cause, and Arseniy
Yatseniuk, a former foreign minister who has joined opposition
forces with Tymoshenko, both attended the hearing.

FRESH CHARGES

The authorities have ignored Western criticism and piled up
fresh charges against Tymoshenko for alleged past misdeeds.

In a separate trial, which has been adjourned several times
because of Tymoshenko’s health, she is accused of embezzlement
and tax evasion going back to alleged offences when she was in
business in the 1990s.

Lawyers for Tymoshenko pressed her case at the European
Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on Tuesday, arguing that her
pre-trial detention had been unlawful and that she had been
subjected to degrading treatment in prison.

“The only reason for her detention was to exclude her from
Ukrainian political life and to prevent her running in the
parliamentary elections,” her defence counsel, Serhiy Vlasenko,
told judges.

Tymoshenko’s lawyers said she had been held in inhumane
conditions – in permanently lit, unheated cells and tracked by
surveillance cameras.

The former prime minister was a leader of the 2004 Orange
Revolution protests against sleaze and cronyism in Ukraine that
derailed Yanukovich’s first bid for the presidency.

She served two terms as prime minister under President
Viktor Yushchenko, but the two fell out and their partnership
dissolved into bickering and infighting.

She narrowly lost to Yanukovich in a run-off for the
presidency in February 2010 after a bitter campaign in which
Tymoshenko heaped abuse on her opponent.