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When will Tymoshenko arrive in Berlin for treatment?

04.09.2013   
According to Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle the Tymoshenko case has particular symbolic significance for Germany. Its resolution is one of the conditions for signing the Association Agreement “eliminating the impression of selective Ukrainian justice”.

The Deutsche Welle Ukrainian Service reports various sources as suggesting that the Berlin Charite Clinic is already preparing a ward for former Prime Minister and opposition leader, Yulia Tymoshenko.  It says that if Ms Tymoshenko is not released for treatment, the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement will probably not be signed.

Several newspapers, such as the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza, have even suggested a specific timeframe (15 September).  Aleksandr Kwaśniewski, one of the two special European Parliament Representatives told Polskie Radio that Tymoshenko may go abroad for treatment by the end of September.

Resolution of the situation with Yulia Tymoshenko, sentenced to 7 years imprisonment in 2011 in a trial widely seen as politically motivated, is a condition for the signing of the Association Agreement.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told DW that the Tymoshenko case has particular symbolic significance for Germany. He named as one of the conditions for signing the Association Agreement “eliminating the impression of selective Ukrainian justice”.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister acknowledges the issue. In an interview given to DW he named the problem “perhaps the only issue marring relations between Ukraine and the EU”.  He went on, however, to assert that Ukraine was a law-based country and that there was no political solution to the problem.  “Tymoshenko cannot be released simply according to somebody’s political will”, he claimed.  He asserts that letting Tymoshenko out for treatment in Germany is not possible without resolving the legal side of the matter.

Former Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk rejects such statements as political demagogy. He says that if those in power wanted to resolve the problem, saving face, they would agree to the proposal put forward by the opposition to cancel the controversial Articles 364 and 365 of the Criminal Code under which Yulia Tymoshenko (as well as Lutsenko) were prosecuted.

Tarasyuk says that there are other options as well, for example, through implementation of the European Court of Human Rights judgment which found that Tymoshenko’s detention was unlawful.  He believes that if the political will was there, she could also be let out for treatment.  Both the Constitution and legislation allow for treatment of any person as long as there were no restrictions in the court sentence.  There were none, he stresses.

There is, finally, the option of pardoning Ms Tymoshenko.  Tarasyuk says that the President has all the necessary powers, and it is he who determines the conditions for such a pardon.

From the report here

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