Tymoshenko to be probed for possible link to 1996

Ukrainian Prosecutor General's office will probe the possible involvement of ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the 1996 killing of a lawmaker, a top prosecutor said on Saturday. Eastern Ukrainian businessman and influential lawmaker Yevhen Shcherban and his wife were shot dead in the airport of Donetsk upon arrival from Moscow in November 1996. Several gunmen posing as police officers drove up to his private jet and opened fire from assault rifles. In 2002, eight suspects were arrested and subsequently found guilty of the murder. The Wikileaks website quotes a diplomatic cable from former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor as saying that Shcherban was killed on the orders from former Ukrainian premier Pavlo Lazarenko for "not sharing Lazarenko's gas business philosophy." In 2006, Lazarenko stood trial in the United States on charges of extortion, fraud and money laundering and is currently serving a ten-year jail sentence. Numerous charges were filed against Lazarenko in Ukraine, including ordering murders of Shcherban and former National Bank chief Vadym Hetman, but the U.S. has rejected extradition requests citing the absence of an extradition treaty. "We have interrogation transcripts of a U.S. witness, who said directly that Shcherban's murder was paid from accounts of Lazarenko and Tymoshenko. We have those documents and we are set to verify them," Ukraine's first deputy prosecutor general Renat Kuzmin said in an interview aired by Ukraine's Inter TV channel. Kuzmin confirmed that Tymoshenko, who was sentenced to prison in mid-October for signing a "disadvantageous" gas deal with Russia, could be released if the abuse of office article of the country's Penal Code is decriminalized. "The decriminalization of the article would serve as a solid basis for her release," he said. On October 11, Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of abuse of office in signing a 2009 gas deal with Russia, a verdict immediately condemned by both the European Union and Russia as politically motivated. Tymoshenko's BYuT-Batkyvshina party has been consistently attempting to discuss in parliament an amendment, which decriminalizes Article 365 of the Criminal Code. The article stipulates jail time for abuse of office.