May 12 (Reuters) - Ukraine's prosecutor's office said on Wednesday, May 12, it had re-opened a 2004 criminal case against former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko on accusations she had tried to bribe Supreme Court judges.
Here are some key facts about Tymoshenko (49):
* WHO IS YULIA TYMOSHENKO?
— Nicknamed the "gas princess" for her involvement in the gas industry in the 1990s, her striking looks and designer clothes. 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.
* CHARGES AGAINST TYMOSHENKO:
— In 2001, formal charges of forgery and smuggling gas were brought against Tymoshenko while she was head of United Energy Systems, a private gas trading firm in the mid-1990s.
— Then President Leonid Kuchma, her bitter critic, accused her several times of exceeding her powers as deputy prime minister. Tymoshenko denounced the criminal probes as a witch-hunt, saying her efforts to clean up the corrupt energy sector threatened the interests of powerful businessmen. She spent a month in a detention centre following the investigation, but a court cleared her.
— Last month, 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 cash received for selling carbon quotas.
* POLITICAL RISE AND FALL:
— Her fiery speeches and calls for social justice enthralled vast crowds in the "Orange Revolution" — weeks of street protests against official results in the 2004 presidential election in which Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovich was initially declared the winner.
— After Yushchenko won a re-run ordered by the Supreme Court, she was appointed premier of an "orange" government riven by infighting. She alarmed investors with calls for a mass review of privatisations and analysts criticised her populist social spending sprees. She fell out with the president and was sacked in September 2005 after less than eight months in office.
— When Yanukovich became prime minister after a 2006 parliamentary election, she was reconciled with the president and was the prime force behind his decision to dissolve parliament and call an early election which gave the "Orange" parties a tiny majority in parliament.
— In Jan. 2009, Tymoshenko brokered a 10-year gas deal with her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to end a three-week energy row that led to supply cuts to Europe.
— However Tymoshenko went on to lose to Yanukovich in a bitter campaign for the presidency in February 2010. In March, she was ousted in a vote of no-confidence and was replaced by new prime minister, Mykola Azarov.
