A senior Ukrainian prosecutor said on Nov. 26 that authorities had gathered enough evidence to link jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko to the 1996 murder of politician Yevgeny Shcherban.
Appearing on Inter television channel late on Nov. 25, deputy General Prosecutor Rinat Kuzmin said that “money has been transferred to the [contract] killers’ bank accounts from firms owned by [former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo] Lazarenko and Tymoshenko.”
A lawmaker and businessman that held big influence in eastern Ukraine, Shcherban and his wife were shot to death at Donetsk airport in November 1996. Eight individuals were reportedly arrested and jailed over the murder. Lazarenko was prime minister and one of Ukraine’s most influential politicians during the mid 1990s. Tymoshenko, his political ally back then,controlled a large share of Ukraine’s natural gas sector through a company called United Energy Systems of Ukraine.
Allies of Tymoshenko have denied her alleged involvement in Shcherban’s murder, calling the claims by prosecutors nothing more than a new round of trumped up and politically motivatedallegations and charges against her.
Tymoshenko was this autumn sentenced to seven years in prison in a trial widely seen in Ukraine and abroad to have been a politically motivated attempt by President Viktor Yanukovych to sideline his main opponent. European Union and US officials have called upon Ukraine’s authorities to release Tymoshenko and allow her to take part in next year’s parliamentary elections.
In pointing to a long list of alleged crimes committed by Tymoshenko, Ukrainian officials have tried with no success to convince the EU and US that the former Orange Revolution leader deserves to be in jail.
