Editor's Note: The following is the statement issued by Ukraine's jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and published on her official website on Dec. 22.
Watching from behind bars of Lukianivska prison the show of horror, fatuity and absurdity that the trial associated with my name has turned into, I decided to refuse from taking any part in this infamous process and from filing a cassation against the rulings of courts of first and second instances.
Judicial system and justice are totally non-existent in Ukraine today. It is absolutely useless to seek truth or justice in Ukrainian courts.
The current authorities, the Yanukovych regime have utterly crushed the judicial power. Instead of those, whose major professional calling is to hunt for truth and render fair justice, the judge’s robes have been worn by werewolves and torturers who would execute any command of authorities. There is no honor, justice or truth in courts; there is only turpitude, wooing the regime and derision to people.
I believe that this will continue in Ukraine until Yanukovych is in power. And during this period expectation of justice from Ukrainian courts makes no sense.
And what kind of fair trial can one talk about, when those judges openly and with no feeling of shame continuously tell lies, distort facts and falsify the case? When all of a sudden the proof of innocence disappears from a finalized case? When the court doesn’t want to hear defense witnesses and adds the testimony in your favor to the charges?
What kind of seeking the truth can one talk about, when you are suddenly grabbed by the special force unit, when you are bedridden, which drags you to a medical facility to prove that you can walk? When some people with photo and video equipment burst into you cell and shamelessly do videotaping taking advantage of your helplessness and then spice the videotape inserting a plasma TV and a shower cabin? When you get pain relieving injections every two hours, but they state that you are the healthiest person on the planet? When the court sits in the cell near a slop-pail for 12 hours, although they have brought the text of decision with them in the morning? When finally they re-arrest you when you are in your cell, behind bars and bedridden, and the justification is that I am still at large…
How can one believe the court, if you even cannot get in there during your own case trial despite all your demands, protests and statements? What kind of justice are we talking about, when the arguments of prosecution come down to “heels’ of your house-shoes photographed by the paparazzi hired by special services?
No, this is not the year of 1937. This is the second year of their rule that has thrown the country beyond the boundaries of our era, the era of common humanity and decency. This is an aboriginal system and a cave epoch in their worst…
Under such circumstances I don’t see the reason or need to continue to support this farce in Ukrainian courts. I won’t seek the truth in them since it’s non-existent there. If they want to do this let them amuse themselves in their “wrongjustice” showing the rest of the world their amorality and guile.
I believe that the European Court of human rights will render judgment on the absurdity and crime that is called trial by Ukrainian authorities.
At the same time, I would like to note that despite all tortures, torments and exasperation they failed to beat me down and they never will. I keep on fighting since even here, behind bars, I feel more freedom than all the yanukovyches together behind their supreme fences.
I continue my struggle for a free, happy and democratic Ukraine. They can kill me, but they will never kill my proud country and my great people.
The truth will win no matter what! And the free Ukraine will spring up in the world all but very soon. The Dark Age will end in a little while. And the sun will rise all over the country. This will happen shortly, I am sure. Not on 31 April, as was written in one of the falsified protocols on my case, but much sooner than that!
Hold on, have faith and fight!
Yulia Tymoshenko
