Ukraine Delays Tymoshenko Hearing until After Polls
A Ukrainian court Monday once again delayed the new trial of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko on embezzlement and tax evasion charges until after crucial parliamentary polls.
A judge in the eastern city of Kharkiv, where the former prime minister is already serving a seven-year sentence after her conviction last October on abuse of power charges, said he could not hear the case in Tymoshenko's absence and set the next hearing for November 13.
Key legislative polls in which Tymoshenko is leading a united opposition party -- the main challenger to the ruling Regions Party of President Viktor Yanukovych -- are set for October 28.
Tymoshenko herself has not been allowed to participate in the polls.
"The court has ruled that it is impossible to hear the case in the absence of Tymoshenko and her attorney," Judge Kostyantyn Sadovsky said, an AFP correspondent reported from the courtroom.
The trial has already been delayed several times due to various reasons, including the absence of Tymoshenko, who has been treated for debilitating back pains since May.
Some 300 Tymoshenko supporters and around 500 opponents rallied near the courthouse.
Ukraine's former prime minister was jailed for seven years last October on abuse of office charges that were brought shortly after she lost a bitter election contest again Yanukovych in 2010.
The new case relates to Tymoshenko's time in the 1990s as head of Ukraine's top gas trading company. Previous government probes into her leadership role there had been dropped and the case dismissed.
The treatment of Tymoshenko, a co-leader of the 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution, has sparked concern in the West and prompted the European Union to tell Kiev that signing a deal on possible future membership for Ukraine would be conditional on Tymoshenko's release.
Source: Agence France Presse
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