MP Serhiy Vlasenko, a former defense lawyer for Batkivschyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko, commenting on his removal from the courtroom and removal from the defense of the former premier in a gas supply case, that Judge Rodion Kireyev did not refer to the a provision of the law using which he expelled the MP.
"Mr. Rodion Kireyev, whom I don’t have the heart to call a judge, does not care why people are removed from the courtroom. He expelled Tymoshenko, because she was sitting, and he expelled me, because I was standing. When I asked the judge to refer to a provision of the Criminal Procedure Code, which bans a person from standing, he said that I must obey the requirements of the presiding judge. Then I told him that if the presiding judge asks me to build a house for him, this does not mean that I should build it. The Criminal Procedure Code points to legal orders issued by the presiding judge within his competence during the consideration of a criminal case," he said on Ukrainian television’s Channel 5 late on Monday.
"From the very beginning of the hearings, Mr. Rodion Kireyev began to infringe on the rights of Yulia Tymoshenko to be defended, and started doing everything to prevent her new defense lawyers from participating in the case, making attempts to remove them from the courtroom, blocking the courtroom with shields, and bringing in police officers. When I asked the judge which law envisaged that, he replied that he decided so and that’s all, and you must obey this," Vlasenko added.
Ukraine’s state security service SBU had launched a criminal case linked to the affairs of an energy company once run by Tymoshenko.
Tymoshenko is on trial charged with abuse of office over a 2009 gas deal with Russia and is the target of two other criminal cases relating to her activities as prime minister.
She has dismissed all charges as politically motivated and accused the government of President Viktor Yanukovich, who narrowly beat her in the 2010 presidential election, of cracking down on opposition.
