The long-awaited testimony
of Petro Kirichenko took place on May 15. Via video link from the
United States, the man who was once called Pavlo Lazarenko’s wallet
told a court in Kyiv very directly and very emotionally that
Tymoshenko is guilty of murder and that she paid for it. These are
the two crucial elements of the puzzle that prosecutors were looking
for to convict Tymoshenko.
Kirichenko wasn’t shy in
his choice of words. At the beginning of his testimony, her referred
to Tymoshenko as a woman of loose virtue, accused her of plotting to
pin Shcherban’s murder on him, and said many people have shot
themselves because of her, while others “are rotting in jail.”
After dishing out these
emotional maxims, Kirichenko moved on to the details of the murder.
In his story he referred to his sources – former Prime Minister
Lazarenko, Tymoshenko’s patron in the gas business in the 1990s, and
the alleged assassin of Shcherban Oleksandr Milchenko, who died a
mysterious death in 1997.
Kirichenko’s story
relating to the murder started with him recalling a conversation with
Lazarenko in 1996, in which the latter said Tymoshenko was “in
grave danger” and asked to help him find a criminal authority to
help out. Milchenko, whose gang name was “Matros” (Sailor) had
just come out of prison at the time, and was introduced to Lazarenko
by Kirichenko.
Lazarenko told Kirichenko,
the keeper of his bank accounts, that he would have to pay $3 million
to Matros. This is one of the strangest elements in the whole case.
Criminologists, prosecutors and observers of all stripes have been
pointing out that in the hungry 1990s it was possible to hire an
assassin for a handful of dollars, and that the figure of $3 million
seems absurd.
Kirichenko gave a colorful
description of a drive the two of them took back to Lazarenko’s
private home, where he fished out of his personal safe stacks of
dollars worth $500,000, packed them into a suitcase, and told
Kirichneko to pass the money on to Matros. Kirichenko claimed he
thought the money was paying for Tymoshenko’s safety.
When Shcherban was shot dead at
the Donetsk airport on his arrival from Moscow on November 3,
1996, Milchenko came to Kirichenko telling him he did it, and
demanding the rest of the money. Kirichenko
complied and transferred $2.3 million, which in theory makes him an
accomplice.
Kirichenko’s testimony
raises more questions than it answers. All of it is based on
second-hand pieces of information, mostly featuring people who are either
dead or would incriminate themselves if asked to corroborate his
story.
There is not a single
record confirming Tymoshenko’s involvement, except in the case of a
bank transfer. However, bank statements used as evidence that were
leaked previously to the media, and then quoted by Tymoshenko’s
defense during the cross-examination, seem to show that the $2.3
million bank transfer to Milchenko happened days before any money
from Tymoshenko’s company showed up on Lazarenko’s secret account,
kept by Kirichenko.
Moreover, in 2001
Kirichenko claimed the money was an investment into a joint business
project in Ukraine, and the contradictory statements seem to indicate
that he lied under oath at least once – either in April 2001, or in
May 2013.
Also, Kirichenko’s
decision to talk about Tymoshenko’s role in the Shcherban murder
comes after several significant personal events. In 2011, his wife
was effectively tortured in prison after she was tricked into coming
to Kyiv to sell a property that was frozen by law enforcement. A
cancer survivor, she has said publicly that the only purpose of that
arrest was to get to her husband.
As a result of this detention, a dialog started between Kirichenko, who lives in the U.S. under a witness protection program, and Ukraine’s prosecution.
Kirichenko seems to have been
subsequently rewarded for his cooperation, as frozen assets and
significant financial means were suddenly released, according to
Tymoshenko’s top lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko. This fact alone deserves a
probe, but instead Kirichenko was allowed by the court not to comment
about that.
Top all these coincidences
with testimonies of Tymoshenko’s former business rivals, who said all
business conflicts with Shcherban had been successfully resolved by the end of 1996 when the murder took place, and
the prosecutor’s case looks extremely flimsy.
The problem is, this won’t
save Tymoshenko from a “guilty” sentence.
If past experience is
anything to go by, the judge will side with the emotional arguments
of the prosecution, overlooking the obvious contradictions in the testimony of the top witness, and a complete absence of first-hand evidence.
The same thing happened to Yuriy Lutsenko, who was sentenced to four years in prison in Feb. 2012 despite a complete lack of evidence supporting the prosecutor’s case
of misappropriation of state property and abuse of power leading to
grave consequences.
Tragic as it is, hearsay
will be enough to convict Tymoshenko for a Ukrainian court – it has
become obvious from the triumphant comments of prosecutors on May 17.
They sound as if they have already won.
At this point many
Ukrainians, as well as friends of Ukraine abroad, would no longer
care even if Tymoshenko was guilty of murder, and the smoking gun was
found in her own bedroom. The hunt against Tymsohenko has gone so far
and for so long, that all Ukrainians want is for the president to let
this destructive process end.
It no longer looks like it’s likely to happen.
He will, of course, pay
for it at the polls in 2015. But not before Tymoshenko is convicted,
again, and the country further tarnished by this never-ending
travesty of justice.
Kyiv
Post editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at
[email protected]
