Kharkiv - Serhiy Vlasenko, a defender of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, has described as a political farce Tymoshenko's trial for alleged irregularities in the operations of Unified Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) at the time she headed the company.
“All these so-called accusations appeared in 2001, when Yulia Volodymyrivna [Tymoshenko] headed the movement Ukraine Against Kuchma [former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma]. All these accusations were a subject of court scrutiny at the time. The Prosecutor General’s Office closed down these cases due to the absence of corpus delicti in Yulia Tymoshenko’s actions. And the Supreme Court confirmed the legitimacy of this case’s closure due to the absence of corpus delicti in Yulia Tymoshenko’s actions on November 11, 2005. Therefore, there is no legal sense in continuing this farce,” Vlasenko told journalists in Kharkiv on Friday.
Despite the defense team’s demands, the court did not consider Tymoshenko’s request on closing this criminal case on Friday, he said.
“The defense once again demanded today that this political farce be stopped and this absolutely falsified case closed. The judge once again ignored the defense’s requests. The judge once again read out what was prepared for him beforehand,” Vlasenko said.
It was reported earlier that Judge Kostiantyn Sadovsky had announced a recess in the hearings on the UESU case until Dec. 18 due to the defendant’s absence.
He said also that the court would consider the request on dropping the criminal case at a relevant stage of the proceedings.
