You're reading: Tymoshenko’s lawyers believe 15-day break in trial was announced for non-judicial reasons

The defense team of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said it believes that the decision to postpone the hearing of the gas case for 15 days indicates that "something has happened outside the judicial process" and Kyiv's Pechersky District Court cannot issue a ruling on the case.

"The decision to postpone the court debates for 15 days certainly indicates that the court is currently not ready to take any decisions and evaluate the results of what we’ll say at the debates," Tymoshenko’s lawyer Yuriy Sukhov told reporters on Monday.

He said that such actions by the judge were a positive development for the defense team, as its lawyers will be able to consider the case properly.

"However, there is a problem – the fact that Yulia Volodymyrivna [Tymoshenko], in our opinion, was left under arrest for two weeks absolutely illegally. It certainly suggests that some repression against her is continuing," Sukhov said.

Another of Tymoshenko lawyers, Oleksandr Plakhotniuk, in turn, said that in addition to saying there was a need to give the defendant time to prepare for the court debates, the court explained the need to postpone the session was due to the extension of the term for drafting court session documents.

The lawyer also said that last Sept. 8, the court, despite requests from the defense team to prepare for the court debates, gave the lawyers only one working day to prepare.

"This means that something happened over this period – from Thursday until today – something outside the court. It cannot happen that on Thursday our petition [to provide time to examine the gas case] was rejected, yet on Sept. 12 we were given more than two weeks. Something happened outside the judicial process," Plakhotniuk said.

He again said that all of the case materials indicated that Tymoshenko is not guilty.

"In our opinion, the court simply cannot now bring in a guilty verdict. The court today cannot substantiate that Yulia Volodymyrivna [Tymoshenko] committed a crime when signing [gas] contracts [with Russia] in 2009," he said.

Plakhotniuk also did not rule out that "something will happen" during the break and that it would be clear why such a long break was announced.

As reported, Rodion Kireyev, the judge of Kyiv’s Pechersky District Court presiding over the trial of Tymoshenko, on Monday announced a break in the court hearings until 1500 on Sept. 27 to allow the defendant to properly prepare for the court debates and ensure her right to a defense.

On Sept. 12, the court was expected to hold court debates, which is the final stage of the trial.