Sept 27 (Reuters) - Here are some facts about Ukrainian former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, 50, whose trial resumes on Tuesday. She is charged with abuse of office over a gas deal signed with Russia in 2009, which she brokered.
WHO IS YULIA TYMOSHENKO?
– Born in November 1960, Tymoshenko shot to world prominence when she helped lead the "Orange Revolution" street protests in Kiev in 2004-5 which doomed President Viktor Yanukovich’s first bid for power.
– With her peasant-style hairbraid, which has become her political trademark, she enthralls her supporters with fiery speeches in which she portrays herself as the saviour of Ukraine from corruption and criminality.
– Yanukovich, who defeated her in a presidential election in February 2010 and is her political arch-rival, has particularly been the object of her invective.
– Her early involvement in the gas industry in the 1990s after Ukraine had gained its independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union earned her the nickname of the "gas princess".
– She entered parliament in 1996 and was made a deputy prime minister in charge of the energy sector in 2000 by the new premier Viktor Yushchenko. But since losing to Yanukovich in a bid for the presidency she has not been in parliament.
CHARGES AGAINST TYMOSHENKO:
– The prosecution in her trial alleges she abused her power by rail-roading the state energy firm, Naftogaz, into signing a 2009 gas import agreement with Russia. The Yanukovich leadership says this saddled Ukraine with an exorbitant price for supplies of Russian gas.
– The hearing resembles one in 2001 when formal charges of forgery and smuggling gas were brought against her while she was head of United Energy Systems, a private gas trading firm in the mid-1990s.
– Then President Leonid Kuchma accused her several times of exceeding her powers as deputy prime minister. She spent a month in a detention centre following the investigation, but a court cleared her.
– In May 2010, Ukraine’s state prosecutor launched a new criminal case relating to what it said was the misuse by Tymoshenko’s government of about $290 million in cash received for selling carbon quotas.
POLITICAL RISE AND FALL
– Her fiery performance in the "Orange Revolution" earned her a niche as prime minister under President Viktor Yushchenko, her ally in the protests.
– But she fell out with Yushchenko and was sacked in September 2005 after less than eight months in office. She was later briefly reconciled with Yushchenko and had a second spell as prime minister.
– In Jan. 2009, Tymoshenko brokered the 10-year gas deal with her Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, which has now landed her in court.
– Yushchenko, who has appeared as a witness at her trial, put the blame squarely on her. He says she went to Moscow to negotiate the deal by herself and then hid details of it from him.
– Tymoshenko says the trial against her is a vendetta by Yanukovich aimed at neutralising her as a political force.
– The judge at her trial ordered her detained in police custody on Aug. 5, alleging she had behaved disruptively in court.
– The United States and the European Union, which see her trial as politically motivated, have called for an end to the case against her and for her to be released.
