Jailing of ex-pm of Ukraine ruled rights violation

YULIA TYMOSHENKO

KYIV • Ukraine’s jailing of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko was a politically motivated violation of her rights, Europe’s human rights court ruled Tuesday, dealing a harsh blow to President Viktor Yanukovych who has insisted the case against his top opponent was not political.

The prosecution of the country’s most vocal opposition leader has strained the former Soviet state’s ties with the European Union and the United States. Tuesday’s ruling by the Strasbourgh, Francebased European Court of Human Rights put fresh pressure on Mr. Yanukovych to ensure her release if he wants to sign a key co-operation agreement with Brussels this year.

There was no immediate comment from the government, other than a promise to closely analyze the ruling.

In Strasbourg , Mykola Tochytskyi, Ukraine’s permanent representative to the Council of Europe, stormed out of the courthouse after the ruling was read out.

Tymoshenko, a heroine of Ukraine’s 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution, was jailed for seven years in October 2011 after being convicted of exceeding her powers as premier while negotiating a gas contract with Russia.

The West has condemned her jailing and other legal cases against her as politically motivated and insisted on her release.

Tymoshenko herself has accused Mr. Yanukovych of masterminding the legal campaign against her to keep her out politics. She insists her rights were violated when she was first jailed in August 2011 during her trial on charges of contempt of court. The Strasbourg-based court agreed unanimously her jailing was “for other reasons” than those permissible by law.

In Kyiv, Tymoshenko’s lawyers called on Mr. Yanukovych to honour the ruling and free her from jail soon. Her daughter Eugenia said the ruling will be like the “first ray of sunlight” for her mother who is being treated for a spinal condition in a hospital ward where windows are shut and draped.

“The European court has recognized my mom as a political prisoner and now the authorities in Ukraine will no longer be able to deny this and deny the fact that she must be freed in the coming days or weeks,” Eugenia Tymoshenko said. “Today is the first step toward her complete political rehabilitation and she will be freed soon. Soon she will be completely cleared of all the false and absurd accusations.”

In the past, Mr. Yanukovych has insisted the Tymoshenko case is not political, Ukrainian courts are independent and he cannot interfere in the legal proceedings. He has also resisted calls to pardon Tymoshenko on humanitarian grounds. Mr. Yanukovych has said that he will consider pardoning her after all the other legal proceedings against her are over. Tymoshenko has been charged with embezzlement, tax evasion and organizing the murder of a politician and businessman 17 years ago — charges she denies.