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Presidential commission denies pardon to Timoshenko

The commission said pardoning Timoshenko would be premature

Photo ITAR-TASS

Photo ITAR-TASS

KIEV, April 27 (Itar-Tass) - The Ukrainian president’s commission for pardons has found no grounds for pardoning former Prime Minister and opposition Batkivshchina party leader Yulia Timoshenko.

The commission said pardoning Timoshenko would be premature because “the investigation of criminal cases in which Timoshenko has been incriminated and charged with committing grave and very grave crimes are still underway and the court has not yet made relevant decisions on these cases.”

“Therefore, considering the severity of the crime committee by Timoshenko and the fact that she has served a minor part of the term granted by court, that she has been charged with and suspected of having committed other offences, and no decision on the criminal cases has been made yet, the commission for pardons under the President of Ukraine found no grounds for submitting proposals on the application of pardon,” the commission said.

On October 11, 2011, Kiev’s Pechersky District Court sentenced Timoshenko to seven years in prison and upheld Naftogaz Ukrainy's lawsuit seeking compensation of 1.516 billion hryvnia (189.5 million U.S. dollars) for damage sustained by the company as a result of the gas contracts signed with Russia in 2009.

Timoshenko has been serving her term at the Kachanivska Penal Colony in Kharkov since the end of December 2011. On May 9 of this year she was transferred to Kharkov’s Railway Hospital for medical treatment.

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