You're reading: Ukraine high court to rule on Tymoshenko appeal

A Ukrainian high court rules on Wednesday, Aug.29, on an appeal by jailed ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko against her conviction for abuse of office, with few commentators expecting a judgment that will free her and improve ties with the West.

The seven-year prison term handed to Tymoshenko in October
has been condemned as political persecution by Western leaders
and blocked strategic agreements with the European Union on
political association and a free-trade zone.

But despite months of chiding by the EU and the United
States, which see Tymoshenko as a victim of selective justice,
President Viktor Yanukovich, her political nemesis, has refused
to act to secure her release.

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.

Commentators expect a court ruling that is likely to
complicate ties with the West as the former Soviet republic
approaches an Oct. 28 legislative election in which its
democratic credentials will come under the scrutiny of
international monitors.

Yanukovich’s majority 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.

Many critics say the exclusion of Tymoshenko – by far the
most vibrant opposition figure – from heading the list of
unified opposition candidates means the election can be neither
free nor fair.

The abuse of office conviction relates to a gas deal that
Tymoshenko, 51, 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 have urged the court to uphold
her conviction, saying Tymoshenko’s guilt was clearly
established at her Kyiv trial last year.

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

FRESH CHARGES

In the current political climate, with fresh charges being
piled up against Tymoshenko for alleged past misdeeds, no one is
expecting a court ruling that will free her.

In a separate trial, which has been adjourned several times
because of back trouble that has confined Tymoshenko to a
state-run hospital, she is accused of embezzlement and tax
evasion going back to alleged offences when she was in business
in the 1990s.

Analysts say the court’s judges, in a judgment which is
likely to take several hours to read, may simply reject her
appeal on Wednesday.

Some say the judges may support in part some of the
arguments of her defence counsel, but stop well short of a
ruling that would free her.

“I think the court will partially satisfy the demands of
Tymoshenko’s lawyers. This could be taken as a correction of
certain previous mistakes, but, of course, no one will release
Tymoshenko from jail,” said Mykhailo Pogrebynsky of the Kyiv
Centre for political research.

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, known for her trademark braided
hair, 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 went on to lose narrowly to Yanukovich in a run-off for
the presidency in February 2010 after a bitter campaign in which
the sharp-tongued Tymoshenko heaped abuse on her opponent.