On February 14th, head of the Supreme Court of Ukraine,Vasyl Onopenko [who is considered pro-BYuT] met with Viktor Yanukovych. The next day a criminal case against his younger daughter Iryna was closed, and the husband of his eldest daughter, former First Deputy Justice Minister Yevhen Korniychuk, was released from detention, on parole.
Even though former PM Yulia Tymoshenko has been questioned almost daily this year in connection with charges of misuse of official powers, and has been twice banned from travelling abroad at the invitation of European Union bodies, Bruce Jackson, an American lobbyist, having met the president, recently claimed : "The first thing Yanukovych told me: ‘Yulia is not going to jail.’ And what everybody says is that Yulia is not going to jail. [So] Why summon her to the Prosecutor’s General? They said they didn’t know."
Tymoshenko has been invited yet again to attend a meeting in Brussels.
This time, after 'bollockings' from European leaders, Yanukovych, answering journalists’ question whether the General Prosecutor’s Office decision to take such precautions against Yulia Tymoshenko was justified, said [according to his official website]: "I agree that there should be no law enforcement agencies rush in these issues. In any case, all these issues should be decided by the courts. But without any court decision, a person is free, and cannot be blamed or restricted in anything.”
...The President informed that he had had a conversation on the subject with the Prosecutor General. He expressed the opinion that the decision was not correct."
He added that he had communicated with leaders of European structures who wished to see Tymosenko going Brussels, and said: "I think that such a procedure should take place, because restriction, if a person wishes to travel, [should be] impossible, but the Criminal-procedural codex should be adhered to."
So it looks like Yulka T., like Cinderella, may well "go to the ball", after all.
Respected journalist Sonya Koshkina, in a recent article, describes, how friends of former head of Naftohaz Ukrainy, Ihor Didenko, appealed directly to Yanukovych on his behalf, following his arrest last Summer. The answer they got was: "[Go with] this - to Firtash".
Firtash apparently told Didenko's friends:" No, he will sit [be locked up in jail]. And sit for a long time. So the whole world knows that it's impossible to do this to me, to Firtash. " [meaning take my gas.]
Koshkina claims that after his arrest Didenko asked to meet Valeriy Koroshkovsky, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, with whom he was acquainted -they played football together. Didenko spent some time handcuffed, in Khoroshkovsky's waiting room, while other visitors came and went. Eventually they had a brief meeting, but it was surely unpleasant for both of them. Didenko is still behind bars..
It is pretty clear that the present regime is persecuting only senior BYuT loyalists and ministers from the Tymoshenko cabinet, even though some ministers were from the Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party.
According to the former Economy Minister in the Tymoshenko cabinet, Danylyshyn who was recently granted political asylum in the Czech Republic, the former president most likely did a deal with Yanukovych to get himself and his team' off the hook'.
All this of course adds to the impression that the Ukrainian legal system really is being used selectively - the president having the power to save..or to condemn...
And it helps if the top man at the Prosecutor-General's declares that he is "a member of President Viktor Yanukovych's team".
"There's a man goin' 'round takin' names. An' he decides who to free and who to blame. Everybody won't be treated all the same. There'll be a golden ladder reaching down, When the man comes around.... ."
"When the man comes around." - Johnny Cash
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p.s .Ukraine refuses to support Visegrad Group’s position on Belarus. More here
Respected journalist Vitaliy Portnikov claims that had Putin attended the Visegrad summit, even he may well have signed its declaration on Belarus.
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