You're reading: Azarov: European Parliament makes first attempt to deal with Tymoshenko case

Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has said that the European Parliament (EP) has made its first attempt to deal with the case of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko by sending EP observers to the trials, former EP President Pat Cox and former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

“I have seen the first attempt by the European Union and the European Parliament to deal with this situation, because so far all their judgments were based on the fact that Mr. Nemyria [deputy head of the Batkivschyna Party Hryhoriy Nemyria] went [to Brussels] and said something,” Azarov said live on the Kharkiv regional state television channel.

He also noted that Cox and Kwasniewski would be given an opportunity to study all the documents in the case.

“Nobody read any documents or a transcript of the government from which we can see that her [Tymoshenko’s] government did not support this contract,” Azarov said.

As reported, EP President Martin Schulz said that Cox and Kwasniewski would be monitors from the European Parliament at the trial of Tymoshenko.

On October 11, 2011, Pechersky District Court in Kyiv sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years of imprisonment for exceeding her authorities when signing 2009 gas contracts with Russia. She has been serving her sentence at the Kachanivska penal colony since late December 2011.