You're reading: Defense lawyer:Tymoshenko does not know second witness on Scherban case

Kharkiv - Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko does not know in person the second witness on the criminal case on the murder of Ukrainian parliamentarian Yevhen Scherban, the ex-premier's defense lawyer, Serhiy Sas, has said. 

The witness is to be interrogated at Kyiv Court of Appeals on Feb. 15.

“She does not know the witness [Ihor Maryinkov], whose interrogation has been completed today. She also does not know the next witness,” Sas told journalists outside Kharkiv-based Central Clinical Hospital No. 5, where Tymoshenko is undergoing treatment, on Thursday.

He stressed that on Feb. 13 Tymoshenko was summoned to the interrogation of the second witness on the Scherban case due on Feb. 15, which is a violation, as the summon should have been handed over to Tymoshenko three days before the date of the interrogation.

Sas also said that Tymoshenko is worried and indignant about the events at the courtroom on Wednesday, Feb. 13, and insisted on her personal participation in the interrogation of the witness, as she wants to “protect her fair name,” although the transportation to Kyiv would be “a trial to her health.”

“I think those who have travelled Kharkiv-Kyiv road recently would agree with me if I say that it is a serious trial to a healthy person. I don’t think that they are going to transport Yulia Volodymyrivna in an enhanced comfort vehicle… It will be a trial to her health,” Sas said.

According to the lawyer, Tymoshenko asked the guard commander to warn her about her departure in advance.

As reported, on Feb. 13, Kyiv’s Pechersky District Court started interrogating witness Maryinkov on the Scherban murder case. The interrogation was held at the building of Kyiv Court of Appeals.

On Feb. 12, the press service of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine reported that Tymoshenko categorically refused to attend the court hearing and participate in the interrogation of the witness on Feb. 13. A relevant document was drawn up to confirm her refusal.

In turn, Tymoshenko’s defense lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko stated that the ex-premier never refused to travel to Kyiv.

As reported, Scherban, a Verkhovna Rada deputy and a member of Liberal Party Executive Committee, was shot dead at the airport of Donetsk upon his arrival from Moscow on Nov. 3, 1996. The assailants fled the scene in a car. Scherban, his wife and a mechanic died from gunshot wounds on the spot, and a flight engineer was wounded in the neck and died in hospital.

In April 2003, the Court of Appeals of Luhansk region sentenced Vadym Bolotskykh to life imprisonment for Scherban’s murder.

Scherban’s son, Ruslan Scherban, a member of Donetsk Regional Council, said at a press conference on April 4, 2012 that he had passed documents indicating to Tymoshenko’s and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko’s possible involvement in his father’s murder to the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Tymoshenko and Lazarenko have categorically denied being involved in the murder.

On Jan. 18, 2013, Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka said at a briefing that the Prosecutor General’s Office had finished its investigation into the criminal case on the murder of MP Scherban and that Tymoshenko had been notified of being suspected of having organized the crime, along with Lazarenko.