Ukraine court upholds opposition minister

A Ukrainian court upheld the conviction of imprisoned former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko on several charges of abusing his authority, for which he has been sitting out a four-year prison sentence since his arrest in December 2010. With no options left to appeal in Ukraine, Lutsenko’s lawyers said they would appeal his criminal conviction to the European Court for Human Rights, which is expected to announce soon a ruling on the conviction of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The European Court already ruled in July 2012 that Lutsenko’s arrest was illegal and politically motivated. Lutsenko was Ukraine’s Interior Affairs Minister in 2005-06 and 2008-09 and among the leaders of Ukraine’s pro-Western opposition forces.

Zenon Zawada: The ruling was expected but Western diplomats were hoping for some concessions in from the Ukrainian government in resolving this matter in the context of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement. Indeed flexibility on Lutsenko’s case is a valuable measure for potential concessions for Tymoshenko, imprisoned for seven years. If there’s no flexibility for Lutsenko, the Ukrainian court system – which has a track record of accommodating the needs of the administration of President Viktor Yanukovych –certainly won’t demonstrate any for Tymoshenko. Beyond the courts, Yanukovych has indicated that he would consider pardoning Lutsenko.

In light of numerous controversial gestures in the last few weeks (kicking Tymoshenko’s defense attorney out of parliament, arresting an opposition politician in Italy, postponing the Kyiv mayoral election), we estimate the odds of the EU leadership signing the Association Agreement with the Ukrainian government as having fallen to a 1:3 likelihood. The situation is made especially tense by a deadline set by the EU leadership to make a decision by the first week of May on whether it’s worth moving forward.