You're reading: Court wants Tymoshenko punished for messages on Twitter (PHOTO)

Prosecutor Liliya Frolova asks to include in the case file Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's 'allegedly incorrect public statements about the court'.

Tymoshenko believes the request is an attack on her right to free speech, reads the official Tymoshenko’s website.

"The prosecutor is asking that my comments in the press and twitter against the government and court be added to the case. They’re asking that I be punished for these statements," Yulia Tymoshenko wrote on Twitter.

"Now they’ll probably open a case against Twitter and impose a travel ban on iPad. They sense that 140 characters is stronger than 140 gryphon officers," she added ironically.

Mykola Siryi then insisted that all posts from Yulia Tymoshenko’s Twitter page and other public statements in the press be read aloud in the courtroom.

At the same time several dozen Tymoshenko supporters and opponents gathered outside of Pechersky District Court in Kyiv on Monday morning.

News agencies report that her supporters stand on the left-hand side of the entrance to the court and opponents on the right-hand side.

Several dozen police officers and a metal railing separate them to prevent conflicts.

Participants in the action are carrying placards: Tymoshenko’s supporters in her favor and opponents accusing her of criminal activities. Both sides have started delivering speeches. Prosecutors accuse Tymoshenko of illegally forcing through in 2009 a gas supply deal with Russia which Yanukovich’s government called a sell-out of national interests.

The case has raised concerns in the West and, in particular, in the European Union with which the former Soviet republic wants to sign agreements on free trade and association.

"This criminal case was made up on Yanukovich’s order," Tymoshenko’s website quoted her as telling the court.

The 2009 deal brokered by Tymoshenko linked the gas price to the price of oil and oil products, ending a stand-off between Kyiv and Moscow that briefly disrupted supplies of Russian gas to Western Europe.

Tymoshenko faces a number of other criminal charges related to her two terms as prime minister as well as earlier business activities.

She has been accused, in particular, of misusing receipts from the sale of carbon emission permits.

Since Yanukovich came to power, several former members of Tymoshenko’s cabinet have been prosecuted for alleged offences in office and at least one has fled Ukraine.

Western governments and the European Union have expressed concern over those cases and their potential political motivation.

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