Ukraine: <PERSON>’s Courtroom Drama · Global Voices
Since late June 2011, former Prime Minister of Ukraine and one of the Orange Revolution‘s leaders, <PERSON>, has been on trial in capital Kyiv for abuse of power.
According to investigators, <PERSON> overstepped her authority when signing a natural gas contract with Russia, as the prices she negotiated with Russian Prime Minister <PERSON> were too high for the Ukrainian economy. If found guilty she faces up to ten years in prison.
Since the beginning of the trial, netizens inside and outside Ukraine have actively discussed her case. <PERSON> of Foreign Notes found that the charges were impossible to prove:
So, “<PERSON> is accused of causing a loss of some $190 million to the Ukrainian state because of a 2009 energy deal she signed with Russian Prime Minister <PERSON>.”
How can anyone be so sure of this figure?
Has <PERSON> or Gazprom ever admitted on the record that they would have sold the gas in question for $190 million less to <PERSON> in the event that, in 2009, the Ukrainian side had been represented by anyone else? Not very likely…
So to claim anyone else would have got a better deal is pure conjecture..
While, if found guilty, <PERSON> faces up to 10 years in jail, many are questioning the fairness of the trial against the leading opposition figure in the country ahead of the 2012 Parliamentary and 2015 Presidential elections. At Opendemocracy.net <PERSON> wrote:
Since President <PERSON> came to power almost 16 months ago, the opposition has been virtually wiped out. Criminal cases are being brought against members of the <PERSON> government, but is this <PERSON>’s fight against corruption? Or are these cases politically motivated?
[…]
Everyone understands <PERSON> main strategy is absolute power: he wishes to have an absolute parliamentary majority, so at least 226 seats out of 450 have to go to the members of his Party of the Regions. This is the stated aim of all <PERSON>’s cronies. The Prosecutor General’s Office has been chosen as the main tool for achieving this goal. Convicts cannot stand for election, which explains the avalanche-like campaign of persecution against the opposition in <PERSON>’s first year in office. 289
All investigations against members of <PERSON>’s team must be concluded before the start of the pre-election campaign is announced.
The events in the courtroom seemed to do nothing less than reinforce the impression of a politically-motivated trial. The first day of a pre-trial hearing took place in a room of no more than 40 square meters, which, at one time, reportedly held up to a hundred people – conditions that the Head of the European Commission to Ukraine, <PERSON>, called “inhuman” [uk] and <PERSON> compared to a Soviet-time dissident trial.
To make matters worse, on the 6th of July, Judge <PERSON> ordered <PERSON> and her supporters to be removed from the courtroom for disturbing order. This is how blogger <PERSON> of Ukrainiana described the events:
A joke of a trial turned into a show of force after the judge stopped tolerating habitual violations of courtroom order. The ax fell on <PERSON> and some of her supporters, including MP <PERSON> (BYuT), 77, a political prisoner in Soviet times.
Apparently, after police refused to use force against Members of Parliament (MPs), the Berkut special forces were called in to push <PERSON>’s supporters and journalists out (see videos here). Opposition MP <PERSON>, who was also present in court, tweeted [uk] about the special treatment he received by Berkut officers:
Вивихнули руку, здається. Не звернув увагу зразу
It seems [they have] dislocated my arm. I didn't notice [it] at first
According to <PERSON>, her lawyer was given [uk] one and a half days to familiarize himself with the case of 5000 pages, which resulted in him sleeping for 2-3 hours a day for three days in the row, while also going to the hearings. On the 8 of July he had to be taken to a hospital.
All of this, however, seems to have only spiked <PERSON>’s popularity in both Ukraine and abroad. 600