Supreme Court on Monday suspended a lower court's decision to re-arrest opposition leader and former deputy premier Julia Tymoshenko, who is suspected of large-scale corruption
eputy premier Julia Tymoshenko, who is suspected of large-scale corruption.
Police guards securing Tymoshenko in a Kyiv hospital where she is undergoing treatment for digestion problems will be removed, said her lawyer Viktor Shvetz.
Tymoshenko was first arrested Feb. 13 on suspicion of stealing and illegally exporting Russian natural gas and paying millions of dollars in bribes to her one-time ally, former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko. Lazarenko is in a U.S. jail awaiting trial on charges he laundered millions of dollars in bribe money.
Tymoshenko, also suspected of the theft of state assets and of hiding hard-currency profits, denies wrongdoing.
The opposition perceived her arrest as a political action by President Leonid Kuchma, who ousted Tymoshenko last January.
A district court in Kyiv last week ordered her released on health grounds, and because it said the arrest was illegal. But prosecutors appealed the decision, and a city court decided to once again put her under arrest over the weekend.
The Supreme Court, acting upon a complaint from Tymoshenko’s attorneys, suspended that decision Monday.
Court spokeswoman Lyana Shliaposnykova said the suspension will remain in effect as long as the Supreme Court debates the appeal, but could not say when a final decision could be expected.
Tymoshenko, an entrepreneur and lawmaker since 1997, joined the government in 1999 and was in charge of the energy sector, one of the most corrupt ones in the country. She says the case against her was orchestrated by political foes and corrupt officials and businessmen.
After her ouster, she switched sides and joined the National Salvation Forum (FNP), a loose alliance of anti-Kuchma politicians and public figures.
Kuchma’s chief of staff, Volodymyr Lytvyn, indicated that the government was pleased with the Supreme Court’s move Monday. The city court’s decision to re-arrest Tymoshenko «clearly harmed Ukraine’s image,» he said.
Ukraine has been in turmoil for the past four months, with opposition groups staging protests to demand Kuchma’s resignation.
The opposition accuses Kuchma and his top aides, some of whom since have been removed, of incompetence, corruption and involvement in the slaying of critical journalist Georgy Gongadze. The president and the others have strongly denied the charges.
Visiting officials from the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly last week criticized a lack of progress in the case.
