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Ukrainian President Accuses Tymoshenko of Aiding Murder

© RIA NovostiYulia Tymoshenko
Yulia Tymoshenko - Sputnik International
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Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, said on Wednesday that jailed ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko could have been involved in the killing of Ukrainian lawmaker and businessman, Yevhen Shcherban, in 1996.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said on Wednesday that jailed ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko could have been involved in the killing of Ukrainian lawmaker and businessman, Yevhen Shcherban, in 1996.

“The crimes mentioned in the several criminal cases were committed with Tymoshenko’s assistance,” Yanukovych said in an interview with the Bloomberg news agency. The president also said that Tymoshenko had motives for killing Shcherban.

In late May, the former premier, who is currently serving a seven-year jail term for exceeding her authority when signing gas contracts with Russia in 2009, was given witness status in a case related to Shcherban’s murder.

Investigators suspect Tymoshenko of being implicated in orders to kill the businessman after finding $2 million in the bank accounts of Shcherban’s killers. The money was reportedly transferred from companies controlled by Tymoshenko and another former prime minister, Pavlo Lazarenko.

Ukraine’s media has previously reported that prosecutors were waiting for Tymoshenko’s health to improve, before bringing new charges against her in connection with Shcherban’s murder.

Tymoshenko’s opposition Batkivshchyna party was outraged by Yanukovych’s comments, saying that he had “actually authorized a guilty verdict.”

“It doesn’t matter how judges and prosecutors will act – the highest order has been given,” the party said in a statement posted on its web site.

“These words…mark a total and ultimate collapse of Ukrainian justice…It’s a new step in the evolution of a dictatorship…The next step will be Yanukovych’s participation in questionings and tortures of Tymoshenko,” Batkivshchyna said.

Shcherban, the Supreme Rada lawmaker, who also headed Ukraine’s Aton financial corporation, was shot dead with his wife at an airport in eastern Ukraine in November 1996.

Tymoshenko, the opposition heroine of Ukraine's 2004 pro-democracy Orange revolution, was jailed for seven years for abuse of office following a controversial trial in October 2011, which was condemned by Russia and Western governments as politically motivated. She is also facing a separate trial for embezzlement and tax evasion.

 

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