Ukraine committee rejects pardon request for Tymoshenko

The Ukrainian president’s clemency committee declined a request submitted by opposition MPs to pardon former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and thereby enable her release from prison, the president’s press service reported on April 27. “Issues surrounding her pardon are premature, given that the investigation of the criminal charges in which Tymoshenko is accused of hasn’t been completed, and judges in those cases haven’t reached the appropriate rulings,” the press-service reported on the committee’s behalf.

Zenon Zawada: If President Viktor Yanukovych was looking for a pretext to satisfy the Europeans in the case of Tymoshenko, this would have been it. So the committee’s ruling is merely further evidence of what we’ve been saying – Tymoshenko is ulikely to be released before the next presidential election, regardless of the Association Agreement.