The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office is pushing for a closed criminal case against the father-in-law of embattled ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko to be reopened, Tymoshenko’s colleague Oleksandr Turchynov said on Wednesday.
Hennadiy Tymoshenko was a board member for the Ukrainian natural gas trading company United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) led by Yulia in the late 1990s. He was suspected of embezzlement but the case against him was closed in 2004.
“Hearings on the cancelation of the previous decision to close the criminal case will start in the Shevchenkovsky Court on Friday. This is in regard to Tymoshenko’s entourage, including her father-in-law Hennadiy Tymoshenko,” Turchynov, a deputy head of the Batkyvshchina opposition party, said.
On October 11, Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison on abuse of office charges in connection with the signing of a gas contract with Russia in 2009. Tymoshenko’s lawyers appealed the verdict. Western states said the trial was “politically motivated."
Turchynov said the persecution of Tymoshenko’s entourage is aimed at trying to “psychologically break” her.
In a newly reopened case, she is accused of embezzling $3.1 million in state funds and failing to pay $2.5 million worth of taxes in the 1990s, when she was the head of the UESU. The case was initiated in 2001 but then closed over the lack of evidence.
On October 13, Ukraine's security forces also filed a new criminal case against Tymoshenko surrounding a $405-million debt her former company owed to the Russian Defense Ministry.
