A second case was opened against Yulia Tymoshenko

The Security Service of Ukraine has opened a second criminal case against ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who has already been sentenced to seven years by the Kyiv Pechersk Court. It concerns the debts of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine corporation, which Tymoshenko led even before entering big politics, Russia. This was announced at a press conference by the head of the investigative department of the SBU Ivan Derevianko.

According to him, the case against Yulia Tymoshenko is closely connected with the case of Pavlo Lazarenko, also a former head of the Ukrainian government, who is serving a sentence in an American prison.

“In particular, Tymoshenko is accused of being the president and actual owner of the UESU corporation, by prior agreement with the former prime minister, Lazarenko, attempted to embezzle state budget money on an especially large scale by imposing on the Cabinet of Ministers the obligations of the UESU private corporation to the Russian Ministry of Defense in the amount of 405.5 million dollars,” Derevianko said. And he added that on October 12, not only a second criminal case was initiated against Yulia Tymoshenko, but she was also charged. On October 13, Tymoshenko was already interrogated in the newly initiated case.

According to Derevyanko, Tymoshenko, with the assistance of Lazarenko, attracted the UESU to interstate settlements with Russia for gas, but as a result of this she transferred more than $1 billion to the accounts of offshore companies.

“Later, Tymoshenko organized the transfer of these funds to the account of the company Somolli Enterprises Ltd., founded by her. And to Lazarenko's personal accounts in Swiss banks. Part of the money was transferred to Tymoshenko's personal card account,” the SBU representative specified. He stressed that the fact of transferring money to Tymoshenko was confirmed by American courts.

According to Derevyanko, the case was initiated on the basis of a letter from the Russian Ministry of Defense, which was received by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. On October 12, the case was reclassified as a case against a person. A criminal case was initiated under Part 2 of Art. 15 and part 5 of article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which provides for punishment for up to 12 years.

Derevyanko drew the attention of journalists to the fact that the statute of limitations does not matter in this case, although the case was initiated on the basis of events that took place in the mid-1990s. The motivation was as follows: "As you know, in January 2009, Tymoshenko committed a crime and, in accordance with the law, from that moment on, the terms of prosecution are interrupted and begin to last again, that is, until 2019."