Locking up the opposition.

ejmaztec · 11-10-2011 10:49AM #1

This Ukraine case is a bit dodgy by all accounts, but it's a pity that one or two of previous leaders here didn't get the same treatment.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/1011/breaking7.html

A Ukrainian court has sentenced former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko to seven years in prison for abuse of office in relation to a 2009 gas deal with Russia which she brokered.
"The court has... found Tymoshenko guilty... and sentenced her to a prison term of seven years," judge Rodion Kireyev said.
State prosecutors accused Ms Tymoshenko, the main political opponent of president Viktor Yanukovich, of illegally forcing through the gas deal.
Before Judge Rodion Kireyev began speaking, Ms Tymoshenko told the court: "You know very well that the sentence is not being pronounced by judge Kireyev but by president Yanukovich.
"This sentence, written by Yanukovich, will not change anything in my life or in my struggle," she said defiantly.
The trial of the charismatic opposition leader, who accuses Mr Yanukovich of carrying out a vendetta against her, has strained ties between the ex-Soviet republic and the West.
The European Union, one of Ukraine's main trading partners along with Russia, has told Mr Yanukovich, who narrowly beat Ms Tymoshenko for the presidency in February 2010, that landmark economic agreements will be in jeopardy if she is jailed.