(Adds Lazarenko’s comment)
By Olzhas Auyezov
KIEV, April 9 (Reuters) – Former Ukrainian prime minister
Yulia Tymoshenko, serving a seven-year jail sentence on
abuse-of-office charges, on Monday dismissed new allegations
against her of involvement in the murder of a parliament deputy
almost 16 years ago.
She said they were “absurd” and clearly politically driven.
The jailing last October of Tymoshenko, the main opponent of
President Viktor Yanukovich, has soured Ukraine’s ties with the
European Union and the United States, which say the case smacks
of “selective” justice.
But despite Western pressure for her release, Ukrainian
prosecutors have additionally accused her of tax evasion and now
say they are investigating her possible involvement in the 1996
contract killing of Yevhen Shcherban, one of the most
sensational crimes of post-Soviet Ukraine.
Shcherban, a powerful businessman and politician, died in a
hail of bullets as he emerged from a plane in the eastern city
of Donetsk. The attackers, disguised as airport mechanics, also
killed his wife and several bystanders.
His killing followed several other murders in Donetsk,
including a football stadium bombing that killed the owner of
Shakhtar Donetsk club, and led to a realignment of political and
business alliances in the key steel- and coal-producing region.
Both Tymoshenko and Yanukovich were already big players in a
turbulent region which seethed with intrigue and where fortunes
were made and lost in murky dealings ranging from sales of state
assets to protection rackets, extortion and theft.
Tymoshenko was head of the gas trader Unified Energy
Systems, which was a major supplier of the fuel in Ukraine,
while he was deputy governor of Donetsk and a close ally of
other powerful regional leaders.
“Linking me to the Shcherban case is absurd,” Tymoshenko
said in the statement issued by her party, Batkivshchyna. “I
believe that people well understand how poorly this case holds
together, who benefits from it and how absurd it is.”
State prosecutors say they have evidence that Tymoshenko
could be involved in the case, along with Pavlo Lazarenko, who
was prime minister at the time and has since been jailed in the
United States for fraud and money laundering.
Lazarenko denied any involvement with the murder, calling
the accusations “cynical lies”. “I have nothing to do with this
crime,” Interfax news agency quoted Lazarenko as saying in a
statement published by his lawyer on Monday.
Shcherban’s son, Ruslan Shcherban, who was 19 at the time
and survived the attack by hiding under a car, told reporters
last week he had evidence implicating Tymoshenko.
Ukraine’s state prison service said last week it had moved
Vadim Bolotskikh, the man sentenced to life in prison for
killing Shcherban and another powerful regional figure, to a
detention centre in Kiev, a move which means he could be
questioned by prosecutors or testify in a court.
HEALTH CONCERNS
State prosecutors said on March 28 that Tymoshenko would
soon go on trial again on charges of tax evasion. They did not
fix a date.
Tymoshenko, 51, was convicted in October of abusing her
power as prime minister in forcing through a 2009 gas deal with
Russia which, Yanukovich’s government says, ran against national
interests and made vital imports exorbitantly expensive.
Tymoshenko, who denies any wrongdoing, has been in detention
and then in prison since last August, and her lawyers and family
say she is suffering from back pains.
The state prison service has offered to move her to a clinic
in the city of Kharkiv, where her prison is located, for
treatment. But Tymoshenko has refused, saying she will only
follow the recommendations of trusted foreign doctors.
Ukrainian and German government officials meanwhile say
their governments are in talks with a view to her possibly going
to Germany for treatment, but it is not clear if Tymoshenko
herself would agree to go.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry says doctors from Germany
will visit her this week to advise her on treatment.
Tymoshenko was one of the leaders of the 2004 Orange
Revolution which doomed Yanukovich’s first bid for the
presidency and went on to serve twice as prime minister.
But she lost the 2010 presidential election to Yanukovich
and after his rise to power Tymoshenko and a number of her
allies in opposition faced corruption-related charges in what
she has described as a campaign of repression.
Tymoshenko is challenging her initial conviction in the
European Court for Human Rights. The European Union has warned
Kiev that its members will not ratify a milestone Ukraine-EU
association agreement while she is in prison.
(Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
