You're reading: Tymoshenko’s defense counsel Vlasenko believes authorities want to arrest him

  Ukrainian lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's defense counsel, believes the Prosecutor General's Office is seeking his arrest by probing a criminal case against him.

“They understand that they have nothing on me. And their first proceedings deal with charges that make my arrest impossible. But this time around the sanction is 5 years [imprisonment], which allows them to arrest me,” Vlasenko told Interfax-Ukraine in commenting on reports that the Prosecutor General’s Office had filed information on his unlawful actions in relation to his former wife Natalya Okunska in the General Register of Pretrial Inquiries.

Vlasenko said he could not understand the essence of the charges brought against him. “That is, a criminal case on illegal deprivation of freedom is being investigated in relation to Okunska, which concerns actions committed in relation to a child (I don’t understand anything whatsoever) for material gain. That is, I abducted Okunska – for what reason? For what material gain? This is just some rubbish,” he said.

It was reported earlier that the main investigative department of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office had filed information on Vlasenko’s unlawful actions in relation to his former wife Okunska in the General Register of Pretrial Inquiries.

Vlasenko’s actions have been qualified as illegal deprivation of freedom or abduction (Ukrainian Criminal Code Article 146, Part 2), the Prosecutor General’s Office reported. Part 2 of Ukrainian Criminal Code Article 146 headlined ‘Illegal deprivation of freedom or abduction of a person’ deals with actions committed in relation to a child, or for material gain, or in relation to two or more people, or by previous concert of a group of individuals, or with the use of a method dangerous to the victim’s life or health, or involving the infliction of physical sufferings on the victim, or using weapons, or committed over a long period of time. This crime carries up to five years of restriction of freedom or imprisonment.