Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko appeared in court three times in the last week to face charges of abuse of power that she says are aimed at crushing opposition to President Viktor Yanukovych.
The authorities’ handling of Tymoshenko, a long-time foe of the president, is being closely watched in Western capitals as a critical test of the Yanukovych administration’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law.
If Tymoshenko is convicted of criminal charges that she illegally ordered a subordinate to sign a 2009 gas deal with Russia without the required permission of the Cabinet of Ministers, she could be barred from taking part in elections, eliminating the main rival to Yanukovych and the pro-presidential Party of Regions ahead of parliamentary elections next year and a presidential ballot in 2015.
Many analysts said the case against the opposition leader – who faces two other investigations into the procurement of ambulances and alleged misuse of state funds – is politically motivated.
They note that only lower-level officials from the current administration are under investigation, despite widespread evidence of massive corruption.
Yanukovych says there is no political element to the charges and insists that the court will decide whether she is guilty or not.
Interior Ministry officers block supporters of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko before a pre-trial hearing in a Kyiv court on June 24. Tymoshenko faces charges of abuse of power as thousands of people massed in her support in the capital. (UNIAN)
That court received its first tongue-lashing from the fiery Tymoshenko on June 24 at a pre-trial hearing where she accused the judge of carrying out the president’s orders and described the attempt to prosecute her as “political revenge.”
Tymoshenko, who made a fortune in the gas trade in the 1990s, was a leader of the 2004 Orange Revolution that humilliated Yanukovych when a court overturned a presidential election rigged in his favor. He lost the revote to President Viktor Yushchenko.
In appearing before Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court June 24-25 and again on June 29, Tymoshenko became the first former Ukrainian prime minister to stand trial since her former political ally, Pavlo Lazarenko, was convicted by a U.S. court of fraud, money laundering and other crimes.
If convicted, Tymoshenko faces up to 10 years in prison, and would become the second former prime minister after Lazarenko to be punished with jail time.
U.S. prosecutors and judges spent years on the case leading to the conviction of Lazarenko, who allegedly doled out lucrative energy supply contracts to Tymoshenko in the mid-1990s while she headed a gas trading business that earned her fabulous wealth and the nickname of “the gas princess.”
But, in this case, European Union and American officials don’t see any parallels between what Tymoshenko is accused of doing and what Lazarenko is convicted of doing.
“The United States is aware of the opening of the trial against former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and reiterates its concern about the appearance of politically-motivated prosecutions of opposition figures in Ukraine,” Victoria Nuland, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, said.
“When the senior leadership of an opposition party is the focus of prosecutions, out of proportion with other political figures, this creates the appearance of a political motive. We urge the government of Ukraine to refrain from actions that create such an appearance and undermine the rule of law in Ukraine.
We will closely monitor the legal proceedings against Yulia Tymoshenko and other opposition figures,” Nuland added.
To demonstrate Brussels’ concern, Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira, head of the EU delegation in Ukraine, showed up at court on June 24 to witness the first day of the trial. Referring to cramped conditions and lack of proper ventilation in the court room, he said: “The conditions of this trial are inhumane.”
On that first day of trial, Tymoshenko came out fighting, accusing the judge, Rodion Kireyev, of being “a puppet of the presidential office,” which she claims is trying to silence political opposition in Ukraine through criminal investigations.
Tymoshenko demonstrated defiance again on June 29, when the court adjourned until July 4 to give her time to study the charges against her.
On June 29, parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, whose faction in parliament is allied with Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, took a shot at Tymoshenko.
Lytvyn, whom Tymoshenko suspects of complicity in the still-unsolved 2000 murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, said the ex-premier’s quarrels with the judge handling the case discredit the judiciary system. He denies any involvement in Gongadze’s disappearance.
The case
Tymoshenko stands accused of exceeding authority when as prime minister she brokered a January 2009 natural gas supply agreement with her Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
The agreement was praised by EU officials at the time for ending a price dispute that cut off supplies to Europe, and for boosting transparency by cutting out intermediary trading companies controlled by businessmen close to Yanukovych.
But it was criticized sharply by Tymoshenko’s political opponents in Ukraine, including then-President Viktor Yushchenko, for introducing prices deemed too high for Ukraine.
Specifically, the charges brought upon Tymoshenko by prosecutors accuse her of ordering subordinates to sign the supply contracts without having approval from all members of the Cabinet of Ministers. Tymoshenko insists such approvals were not required. Prosecutors claim otherwise.
Prosecutors claim Tymoshenko’s actions on the gas contracts cost the country over Hr 1.5 billion ($187.5 million) in losses. In contrast, Tymoshenko asserts that her actions raised an additional Hr 1 billion ($125 million) in gas transit revenue.
In two separate charges not yet filed in court, prosecutors accuse Tymoshenko of misspending Kyoto Protocol funds while premier and of wrongfully purchasing automobiles for doctors in rural regions. Tymoshenko denies wrongdoing on all counts.
Describing the trial and investigations as a farce, Tymoshenko says that slapping her with a phony criminal record would allow Yanukovych to further monopolize political power. An April poll by Kyiv’s Razumkov Center showed that Tymoshenko’s party has 12 percent nationwide support, trailing behind Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, which leads with 15 percent backing.
Selective justice
Yanukovych has repeatedly denied Western concerns that the probes smack of “selective justice.” He insists the investigations into Tymoshenko and associates – some of which have been in pre-trial detention for nearly a year without due process – are nothing more than an attempt to combat corruption.
Yanukovych’s administration claims law enforcement is investigating wrongdoing by all political colors.
They point, as proof, to a recent investigation launched against ex-President Leonid Kuchma for complicity in journalist Georgiy Gongadze’s murder in 2000. Under Kuchma, Yanukovych climbed Ukraine’s political ladder to become prime minister in 2002.
“Hundreds of criminal cases have been launched against representatives of current and previous administration. By hiding behind their opposition status, former officials are trying to avoid accountability for corrupt acts that have nothing to do with politics,” Yanukovych said.
Skeptics abound.
Oleksiy Haran, scientific director of the School for Policy Analysis in Kyiv, says that only lower-level officials from the current administration are under investigation.
“At the same time there are lots of facts of corruption by the current government,” Haran said. “I was particularly impressed by a fictitious tender as a result of which Ukraine overpaid $150 million for an offshore oil rig. Someone made a lot of money.”
Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko praised the purchase and denied any overspending. But prosecutors have not even dared to investigate it.
In contrast, according to Haran, law enforcement have kept former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, a Tymoshenko ally, in pre-trial detention since last December in connection with alleged overspending of tens of thousands of dollars.
“If one looks into every government, each one violated laws. But we see investigations only into members of the former government,” Haran said. Prosecutors, he added, should start by investigating alleged murky land deals and development at Mezhyhiria, a posh 140-hectare multi-million-dollar former state residence north of Kyiv where Yanukovych resides.
The estate, according to investigative journalists, was suspiciously transferred from public ownership to Yanukovych and companies affiliated with his inner circle. Yanukovych admits to owning only a 1.7 hectare plot of land and a house there.
But his tax declarations do not seem to match up with the apparently high cost of development of the smaller portion which Yanukovych admits to owning.
Moreover, neither the president nor anyone in his circle has clearly explained who owns and has invested into development under way at the larger part of the integrated compound.
Political analyst Vadym Karasiov also considers the trial against Tymoshenko to be politically motivated.
“The country’s judiciary is currently under the control of the executive or is even part of it,” Karasiov said. “In such a situation, any trial against politicians can turn from purely legal cases into political trials.”
In an interview aired on leading Ukrainian TV channels on June 28, Yanukovych commented on the Tymoshenko trial by saying that he faced criminal probes in 2005 after the Orange Revolution that denied him the fruits of a fraudulent presidential election the year before.
Yanukovych said he found legal ways to defend himself. He advised Tymoshenko to follow his example instead of adopting a political strategy aimed at discrediting the investigation’s fairness.
But Karasiov said Tymoshenko has no chance to defend herself this way. “Courts back then were much more independent,” Karasiov said.
According to Karasiov, authorities are aiming to accomplish two goals in the case: To destroy Tymoshenko as a popular political figure and show that there is justice in the country.
FACTBOX: Yulia Tymoshenko’s chequered career
(Reuters) Here are some facts about Ukraine’s former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, 50, who went on trial on Wednesday charged with abuse of power.
Who Is Yulia Tymoshenko?
Nicknamed the “gas princess” for her involvement in the gas industry in the 1990s, her striking looks and designer clothes. Born in November 1960, she entered parliament in 1996 and was made a deputy prime minister in charge of the energy sector in 2000 by the new premier Viktor Yushchenko.
Charges Against Tymoshenko
In 2001, formal charges of forgery and smuggling gas were brought against Tymoshenko while she was head of United Energy Systems, a private gas trading firm in the mid-1990s.
Then President Leonid Kuchma, her bitter critic, accused her several times of exceeding her powers as deputy prime minister. Tymoshenko denounced the criminal investigations as a witch-hunt, saying her efforts to clean up the corrupt energy sector threatened the interests of powerful businessmen.
She spent a month in a detention centre following the investigation, but a court cleared her.
In May 2010, Ukraine’s state prosecutor launched a new criminal case relating to what it said was the misuse by Tymoshenko’s government of about $290 million in cash received for selling carbon quotas.
In the latest trial the prosecution has alleged that Tymoshenko abused her power in the signing of a 2009 gas import agreement with Russia. The prosecution said that, without consulting her government, she coerced the then-head of state-owned Naftogaz to sign the gas deal with Russia’s Gazprom. She has denied this.
The hearing was adjourned until July 4.
Political rise and fall
Her fiery speeches and calls for social justice enthralled vast crowds in the “Orange Revolution” – weeks of street protests against official results in the 2004 presidential election in which Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovich was initially declared the winner.
After Yushchenko won a presidential re-run ordered by the Supreme Court, she was named premier of an “orange” government, but it was riven by infighting. Tymoshenko alarmed investors with calls for a mass review of privatisations and analysts criticised her populist social spending sprees.
She fell out with Yushchenko and was sacked in September 2005 after less than eight months in office.
When Yanukovich became prime minister after a 2006 parliamentary election, she was reconciled with Yushchenko and was the prime force behind his decision to dissolve parliament and call an early election, which gave the “Orange” parties a tiny majority in parliament.
In Jan. 2009, Tymoshenko brokered a 10-year gas deal with her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to end a three-week energy row that led to supply cuts to Europe.
However Tymoshenko went on to lose to Yanukovich in a bitter campaign for the presidency in February 2010. In March, she was ousted in a vote of no-confidence and was replaced by new prime minister, Mykola Azarov. – In a pretrial hearing last week, Tymoshenko used a the opportunity to allege that Yanukovich was behind a crooked court action that was certain to convict her of abuse of power.
She complained of political persecution to the European Court of Human Rights ahead of the trial.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected]
