Leader of the Batkivschyna party and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said she does not believe there will be a fair investigation of the criminal case against second Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.
"I do not believe that the criminal proceedings which were initiated against the ex-president of Ukraine will end in justice," she said in an interview with the EuroNews television channel during her recent visit to Brussels.
The Batkivschyna leader said that the opening of the criminal case against Kuchma had the aim of distracting Ukrainians from their country’s social problems.
Tymoshenko visited the summit of the European People’s Party in Brussels on March 23-25.
Tymoshenko is charged with the misuse of funds received by Ukraine under the Kyoto Protocol, and abuse of office while purchasing Opel Combo vehicles against government guarantees.
Earlier, she had been banned from travelling outside Kyiv. However, the Prosecutor General’s Office allowed her to go to Brussels, as investigative actions in her case have been completed.
The criminal case against Kuchma on his involvement in the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze was opened on March 21, 2011. The second Ukrainian president is charged with exceeding his authority and giving unlawful instructions to Interior Ministry officials, which subsequently led to Gongadze’s murder.
Kuchma was charged with exceeding authority or abuse of power under part 3, Article 166 of the 1960 Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Journalist Gongadze disappeared in Kyiv on September 16, 2000. Experts believe that a decapitated body found in a forest outside Kyiv two months later could be the journalist’s.
