Charges of fraud and forgery have been dropped against a U.S. citizen after her husband reportedly gave evidence in an unrelated case against ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Isabella Kirichenko, who was arrested in September on charges connected to a real-estate transaction, was released late last year and returned to the San Francisco area after a court ruled she bore no criminal responsibility.
The release came after her husband, Petro Kirichenko, reportedly gave testimony to Ukrainian officials in yet another case prosecutors are pursuing against opposition leader Tymoshenko, who is already serving a seven-year jail sentence.
Petro Kirichenko (a.k.a. Kiritchenko) was a close associate of Ukrainian ex-Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko before turning state’s witness and giving evidence to a U.S. court that convicted Lazarenko on money laundering and other charges in 2004.
Tymoshenko’s allies have said that Ukrainian authorities arrested Isabella Kirichenko as part of an effort to squeeze damaging testimony from her husband, Lazarenko’s right-hand man when serving as prime minister from 1996-1997.
It was during this period that Tymoshenko earned a fortune running private gas trading company United Energy Systems of Ukraine, with the strong backing of Lazarenko, and allegedly sharing profits with him.
Tymoshenko was jailed late last year on charges that are widely seen as a trumped-up attempt by President Viktor Yanukovych to sideline his main rival. Defiant in the face of international pressure to release Tymoshenko, domestic authorities are pursuing fresh criminal cases against her, some dating back to her mid-1990s private gas trading days.
Ukrainian prosecutors said they needed to question Petro Kirichenko as he could have key evidence linking Tymoshenko and Lazarenko to major financial crimes and involvement in the 1996 airport runway assassination of Yevhen Shcherban, a prominent Donetsk lawmaker and wealthy businessman.
According to a former security service official, Stanislav Rechinsky, Kirichenko was questioned via video link in mid-November.
Petro Kirichenko, reached by telephone in the U.S., declined to comment.
Last year, Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party said in a statement that Isabella Kirichenko was being used as bait to pressure Petro Kirichenko into giving testimony. “They are offering Petro Kirichenko to give untruthful evidence concerning Yulia Tymoshenko … in exchange for the release of his wife,” the party said. Ukrainian prosecutors dismissed such allegations as “fantasy.”
U.S. Embassy officials in Ukraine had closely watched the case and urged Ukraine’s authorities to release Isabella, who has suffered from cancer.
A former business partner of Lazarenko, Petro Kirichenko gave key testimony to U.S. authorities that led to the former Ukrainian premier’s conviction on extortion, fraud and money-laundering charges. Lazarenko is serving a nine-year prison sentence handed down in 2006.
Petro Kirichenko, the star witness against Lazarenko, received leniency for his cooperation with U.S. prosecutors. He has resided comfortably in his San Francisco area residence.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities have been tight-lipped, refusing to confirm or deny whether they have received testimony from Kirichenko that could support another criminal case against Tymoshenko.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected].
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