Europe News

Tymoshenko sentenced to seven years for abuse of power

Oct 11, 2011, 11:03 GMT

A file photo dated 30 September 2011 of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko (C) with her lawyers attending a Kiev City districts court session in Kiev, Ukraine.Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on 11 October 2011. EPA/ALEKSANDR PROKOPENKO / POOL

Kiev - Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of power on Tuesday - a verdict that caused concern in the West and prompted her supporters to clash with police in the streets of Kiev.

Tymoshenko had exceeded her authority as prime minister to approve an unfavourable natural gas import deal with Russia in 2009, and caused some 187 million dollars in losses to taxpayers, Judge Rodion Kireyev ruled.

Tymoshenko said she would appeal the verdict.

Some 5,000 Tymoshenko supporters who had gathered around Kiev's central Perchersk city district court attempted several times to push their way into the court building, or to block traffic on Kiev's main street, Khreschatyk.

Minutes after the sentence was announced, police lines were still holding, with relatively few Tymoshenko supporters coming to blows with police in an attempt to force the cordons. Twelve people were arrested, a police spokesman said.

Tymoshenko, the leader of Ukraine's opposition, ignored Kireyev as he read out the guilty verdict, displaying no reaction and not even looking up as she read messages on a hand-held computer.

Judge Kireyev's sentence also banned Tymoshenko from engaging in political activity for three years, and ordered her to pay 187 million dollars of damages in lost revenues to the Ukrainian natural gas company Ukrnafta.

Tymoshenko, who has been jailed for more than two months on charges of showing contempt for Kireyev's court, interrupted the judge repeatedly as he read out the verdict.

'I want you to be strong. You need to fight for yourself, and for your family,' Tymoshenko said to television cameras in the courtroom.

Speaking to courtroom supporters and media during a recess earlier in the morning, Tymoshenko accused Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych of staging the trail and dictating its verdict.

'Honestly, I'm sorry for Yanukovych. He thinks that he is demonstrating his strength and his authority,' she said. 'But in fact he's debasing himself, he's discrediting himself and he is just crossing himself out of Ukrainian history and its democratic future.'

Asked by reporters how she felt personally, Tymoshenko responded: 'I am perfectly healthy and I am absolutely ready to fight this regime, no matter what verdicts it thinks up.'

Yanukovych had for months refused to comment on the Tymoshenko case, saying he did not want to prejudice the court.

On Tuesday, he blamed the country's weak judicial system for the long, drawn-out and sometimes chaotic trial.

'This is an unfortunate incident which will interfere with Ukraine's European integration. It has caused concern in the EU and I want to say we understand that very well,' he said. 'There are a great many problems with Ukrainian law and their harmonization with European standards.'

Outside the court, Tymoshenko supporters shouted catcalls and shoved against police cordons as news of the guilty verdict passed through the crowd, and again as details of her sentence became public.

Police presence was heavy in the centre of the Ukrainian capital, with hundreds of police standing on sidewalks with locked arms blocking approaches to the Pechersk court building, and reserve units in riot gear waiting in courtyards.

Dozens of passenger buses parked end-to-end lined both sides of Khreschatyk street as additional barriers to demonstrators.

Police allowed only Tymoshenko's legal team and family, and members of selected media, into the courtroom, and blocked all others including even members of parliament from entering.

By constitutional statute, Ukrainian police may not arrest or even detain a member of parliament.

'They (police) have grossly violated the constitution and Ukrainian law. It is simply shameful,' said Ivan Kirylenko, a parliament member for Tymoshenko's Batkyvshchina (Motherland) political party.