All news

Ukraine parliament refuses to debate Timoshenko’s amnesty

Proposed to extend the amnesty in the first place for the most vulnerable categories of prisoners
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

KIEV, May 16 (Itar-Tass) — The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada refused to put on the agenda a bill over the amnesty in 2012, which the convicts, particularly the former prime minister Yulia Timoshenko and the former interior minister Yuri Lutsenko were entitled to. Some 142 deputies with 226 required votes supported an initiative of a deputy and the leader of the Front of Changes Party, Arseny Yatsenyuk.

The bill offered to announce an amnesty and spread it primarily on the most vulnerable categories of the convicts, particularly underage people, pregnant women, elderly people, disabled people and others.

Meanwhile, the provisions of the bill envisage amendments to the Criminal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code and the law on amnesty in Ukraine that would allow to declare those, who were released under the amnesty act, not having any convictions. Such citizens would be entitled to be nominated as candidates for deputies and to be elected at next parliamentary elections due on October 28, 2012.

So, it was offered to spread the effect of the amnesty law in 2012 on the convicts, who were imprisoned under Articles 191 and 365 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code, particularly Yulia Timoshenko and Yuri Lutsenko.