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Ukraine, EU await fateful Tymoshenko verdict

KIEV — Ukraine is expected Tuesday to give the verdict in the trial of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, a decision which will have drastic implications for Kiev’s future relations with the European Union.

Judge Rodion Kireyev retired to consider the verdict in late September after a three month abuse of power trial that EU officials have warned could jeopardise President Viktor Yanukovych’s dreams of EU integration.

Prosecutors, who have demanded a jail sentence of seven years, have charged Tymoshenko with losing the budget almost 200 million dollars by signing gas deals with Russia in January 2009 that were overly soft on Moscow.

But the European Union has expressed repeated alarm over the trial, with its envoy to Kiev bluntly stating that the charges would never have been brought to court in Europe as no corruption is implied.

Kireyev set October 11 as the date for the verdict when adjourning the trial although he could yet push back the date further or take several days to read out the verdict in its entirety.

The supporters of the former Orange Revolution leader have portrayed the trial as a struggle for the future of Ukraine and a historic fight to ensure it has a future at the heart of Europe.

“The fate of Ukrainian democracy is at stake,” her Batkivshschyna party said in a statement. “Either we are going to be free people in our own country or Yanukovych will turn Ukraine into a totalitarian criminal ghetto.”

It called for protests outside the court on Tuesday and warned that the verdict could yet be put off as Yanukovych “fears his people so much.”

Tymoshenko has always insisted that her trial is a vendetta pursued by Yanukovych to eliminate her from politics after their tight tussle in 2010 presidential elections.

The presidency insists it has nothing to do with the trial and has no right to interfere in the work of the courts. But it was a parliamentary commission led by Yanukovych’s Regions Party that first alleged wrongdoing by Tymoshenko.

The dramatic trial saw witness appearances from figures including Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, one of her sworn enemies, and ex-president Viktor Yushchenko, her former ally in the Orange Revolution who became a rival.

Tymoshenko was placed under arrest in August for contempt of court after she incessantly mocked the boyish Kireyev on Twitter messages sent from her iPad in the courthouse and has been in jail ever since.

A conviction would severely endanger Ukraine’s hopes of signing an association agreement with the European Union this year which would be a first step towards its goal of joining the bloc.

Since coming to power, Yanukovych has sought to confound critics who portrayed him as a pro-Kremlin relic from the USSR by setting EU integration as his main aim and snubbing an offer to join a customs union with Russia.

In a hint of a compromise solution the Regions Party said it was ready to examine the possibility of decriminalising the charges that have been laid against Tymoshenko although it has yet to take concrete steps to this end.

The Dzerkalo Tyzhni weekly quoted a source within the Regions Party as saying the move could be agreed after the verdict but before Yanukovych heads to EU headquarters in Brussels for a crucial trip on October 20.

Other allies and former members of the Tymoshenko government have also been probed for their actions while in office, most notably ex-interior minister Yuriy Lutsenko who has been in jail since his arrest in December 2010.

“What is happening in these trials is what we believe to be a political motivation to exclude political opponents from the opportunity for running for office,” EU ambassador Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira said in September.