KIEV, April 27 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s presidential commission on pardons has advised President Viktor Yanukovych not to pardon jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, the deputy Prosecutor General said on Saturday.
“The commission has recommended [the Ukrainian president] not to grant a request. Under the law, there are no grounds for the pardon,” Mikhail Gavrilyuk told RIA Novosti.
More than 20 female MPs sent a petition to Yanukovych to pardon Tymoshenko on April 18. The president sent the request for the consideration of the presidential commission on pardons on April 19.
Tymoshenko remains in prison after being sentenced to seven years in October 2011 for exceeding her authority by signing a gas supply deal with Russia in 2009.
EU and other leaders have expressed their concern over her conviction, which they see as being handed out in response to her political opposition to Yanukovych, head of the Party of Regions, which is mostly supported by inhabitants of Ukraine's Russian-speaking north and eastern districts.
