Tymoshenko tax trial put off again
Source: Agencies |
August 1, 2012, Wednesday
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A UKRAINIAN court resumed a tax evasion case yesterday against jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, but then postponed the hearing for two weeks after a wrangle over whether she could take part in proceedings by video-link from her hospital bed.
Tymoshenko is already serving a seven-year sentence for alleged abuse of office but has been moved from prison in the eastern city of Kharkiv to a clinic for treatment for a chronic back condition. The new hearing in Kharkiv on charges of tax evasion and embezzlement has already been put off several times since a formal opening in mid-April because her treatment ruled out her attendance.
More than 1,000 supporters and opponents of Tymoshenko, whose prosecution and jailing has soured relations between the former Soviet republic and the European Union, gathered outside the courtroom in Kharkiv when the case resumed. But Judge Kostyantyn Sadovsky ordered another postponement until August 14 after Tymoshenko's counsel refused a submission by the prosecution that she could take part in proceedings by video-link from hospital.
"I declare that I do not agree to take part in a video-conference," Tymoshenko said in a personal statement read to the court by her lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko. The break might allow the issue to be clarified, Sadovsky said.
In the new case Tymoshenko, 51, denies the tax evasion and embezzlement charges, which go back to the 1990s when she was a prominent businesswoman. Tymoshenko, President Viktor Yanukovich's main political opponent, was jailed for alleged abuse of office as prime minister relating to a gas deal she brokered with Russia.
Tymoshenko is already serving a seven-year sentence for alleged abuse of office but has been moved from prison in the eastern city of Kharkiv to a clinic for treatment for a chronic back condition. The new hearing in Kharkiv on charges of tax evasion and embezzlement has already been put off several times since a formal opening in mid-April because her treatment ruled out her attendance.
More than 1,000 supporters and opponents of Tymoshenko, whose prosecution and jailing has soured relations between the former Soviet republic and the European Union, gathered outside the courtroom in Kharkiv when the case resumed. But Judge Kostyantyn Sadovsky ordered another postponement until August 14 after Tymoshenko's counsel refused a submission by the prosecution that she could take part in proceedings by video-link from hospital.
"I declare that I do not agree to take part in a video-conference," Tymoshenko said in a personal statement read to the court by her lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko. The break might allow the issue to be clarified, Sadovsky said.
In the new case Tymoshenko, 51, denies the tax evasion and embezzlement charges, which go back to the 1990s when she was a prominent businesswoman. Tymoshenko, President Viktor Yanukovich's main political opponent, was jailed for alleged abuse of office as prime minister relating to a gas deal she brokered with Russia.
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