Batkivschyna party leader and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is continuing to insist on combining a criminal case against her, which deals with the 2009 Ukrainian-Russian gas supply agreements, with the case against former chief of Energy Regional Customs Taras Shepitko and former head of the Ukrainian Customs Service Anatoliy Makarenko and the case against former Naftogaz First Deputy CEO Ihor Didenko.
"All these cases should be combined. They were separated to make it impossible to gather the picture of unprecedented corruption in the top governing bodies," Tymoshenko said. "We have filed a motion on combining these cases, as they should not be considered separately," Tymoshenko said at a court session on Thursday.
Addressing Justice Rodion Kireyev presiding at the trial, Tymoshenko said: "Before you hand down the sentence, you should know the background."
Former First Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov said when he was questioned as a witness, "the courts clearly confirmed that both the customs bodies and Naftogaz acted lawfully."
"I think they [the cases] should be reclaimed and attached to this case, since we have the same judicial system," he said.
There were no legal grounds to ban the customs clearance of 11 billion cubic meters of gas in the state’s interests, Turchynov said.
He said he had forwarded a letter to then Customs Service chief Valery Khoroshkovsky, but the latter opposed the clearance of the said 11 billion cubic meters of gas.
"I did not see legal reasons here. There was no court ruling banning this, or a protest from Gazprom. I don’t see legal grounds. I can only assume that Khoroshkovsky and Mr. Firtash [Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash] could have had business relations," he said.
After leaving the position as the Customs Service chief and being appointed to head the Security Service, Khoroshkovsky facilitated "an attack on Naftogaz," Turchynov said.
It was reported earlier that the Pechersky District Court had forwarded the case against Didenko, Makarenko, and Shepitko back to the Prosecutor General’s Office. They have been charged with unlawful customs clearance of natural gas as part of a criminal investigation into the infliction of material damage on Ukraine, based on the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce’s ruling on RosUkrEnergo’s suit against Naftogaz.
The Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce obliged Naftogaz on June 8, 2010 to return RosUkrEnergo 11 billion cubic meters of gas and also pay it a penalty in the amount of 1.1 billion cubic meters of gas, as stipulated by the contract.
