KIEV, June 24 (RIA Novosti) – The Ukrainian Supreme Court has cleared party leader and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of all charges of signing a gas contract between Ukraine’s Naftogaz and Russia’s Gazprom, the Batkivshina party website announced Tuesday.
“Tymoshenko’s directive for Ukraine’s Naftogaz delegation to sign the purchase-sale contract on natural gas for [the period of] 2009-2019 cannot be considered as abuse of power. From these norms of the law the Supreme Court has come to the conclusion that in this particular criminal case there is no existence of a crime,” the party said.
In 2011, Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in jail for abuse of office for personal benefit while signing gas contracts with Russia in 2009. According to the prosecution, the conditions of the agreements caused large-scale material damage to Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz amounting to roughly $191 million.
The opposition called the sentence politically motivated.
In February 2014, the former prime minister was released under a parliamentary decree after the crime she was accused of was decriminalized.
