UKRAINE-TYMOSHENKO-EUROPEAN-COMMISSION
Brussels, August 9 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Brussels officials have said that public statements about new charges that are to be brought against former Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko appear to prejudge the outcome of ongoing judicial processes.
“It is always a very bad surprise and a disappointment when representatives of the Ukrainian state, including the Prosecutor General’s Office, make public statements which appear to prejudge the outcome of ongoing judicial processes,” Peter Stano, the spokesman of EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule, told Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.
As reported, earlier on Thursday First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin said that the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office has enough grounds to charge Yulia Tymoshenko with involvement in killing Verkhovna Rada deputy Yevhen Scherban in 1996.
On October 11, 2011, the Pechersky District Court in Kyiv sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years of imprisonment for exceeding her authority when signing gas contracts with Russia in 2009. She has been serving her sentence at the Kachanivska correctional facility in Kharkiv since late December 2011.
Currently Tymoshenko is undergoing treatment at a Kharkiv hospital.
Meanwhile, court hearings of the criminal case on the activities of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) Corporation, which was managed by Tymoshenko, are being held in Kharkiv.
The ex-premier refuses to attend the court hearings of the UESU case due to her health condition. The next hearing is scheduled for August 14.
The hearing of an appeal against Tymoshenko’s conviction in the gas case is scheduled for August 16.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has announced that it will hold a public hearing on Tymoshenko’s appeal against her detention on August 28.
[UA EUROPE EEU EMRG CRIM]
ZA
15:32:04 EET-2
