You're reading: Wife of ex-aide to Lazarenko set free

Authorities bowed to U.S. demands on Nov. 15 to release American citizen Isabella Kirichenko after she spent more than two months in detention.

Critics say her arrest and jailing appeared to be an attempt to pressure her husband, Petro, into testifying in a criminal case against imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Petro Kirichenko (a.k.a. Kiritchenko) is a former top aide to ex-Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, Tymoshenko’s onetime associate who is now imprisoned in America after being convicted of money laundering and other financial crimes.

The U.S. Embassy has in recent weeks sent a note to the court and to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs pressing for Isabella Kirichenko’s release, citing health reasons. She was released due to ill health, her lawyer told the Kyiv Post, but has been barred from leaving the country as the investigation continues. She is guarded by six Ukraine’s Security Service officers 24 hours a day.

Since her arrest in early September on suspicion of forging a document when trying to sell an apartment, Kirichenko’s health has deteriorated. She is a cancer survivor who is in need of regular check-ups and medication.

Supporters of Tymoshenko claim that Isabella Kirichenko’s detention was an attempt to blackmail her husband, Petro, into giving evidence in cases against the opposition leader. Prosecutors dismiss this as “fantasy.”

Prosecutors in Ukraine say they want to speak to Petro Kirichenko, who turned state’s witness against Lazarenko and now resides in San Francisco. They say he could have key evidence linking Tymoshenko and Lazarenko to major financial crimes and involvement in the murder of a lawmaker and businessman in 1996.

Despite pressure from the U.S. and Europe to release Tymoshenko, who is serving a seven-year prison sentence, authorities have instead piled on new criminal cases and accusations against Tymoshenko.

Many of them are focused on her time as head of a gas-trading company in the mid-1990s. She is accused of colluding with Lazarenko in embezzlement, tax evasion and other financial crimes.

Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin has in recent interviews said he wants to question Petro Kirichenko in the cases.

Isabella Kirichenko was detained on Sept. 2 and charged with forging a document lifting the seizure of one of her husband’s Kyiv apartments. A hold was placed on his property because of criminal cases against him. Kirichenko’s lawyer, Denys Buhai, said she had been tricked by her broker.

Her detention was extended on Nov. 8 by an appeals court, despite her lawyer arguing there were no legal grounds for the decision and a note from the U.S. Embassy pressing for her release.

Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party said in a statement that she was being used as a tool to pressure Petro Kirichenko to talk. “They are offering Petro Kirichenko to give untruthful evidence concerning Yulia Tymoshenko … in exchange for the release of his wife,” it said. Prosecutors dismissed these claims. Petro Kirichenko, through a lawyer, declined to comment.


Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected].