A Ukrainian court on Friday rejected an appeal by former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko against her seven year jail term on charges of abuse of power that sparked a crisis in relations with the EU. “The sentence… is to be left unchanged,” Kiev appeals court judge Olena Sitailo said in her ruling, an AFP correspondent reported, after a process that was already boycotted by Tymoshenko’s legal team. Prosecutor Lilya Frolova said she was satisfied with the verdict by the appeals court and said that the defence had the right to appeal the ruling at the high court within the next three months. But Tymoshenko had said the day earlier that she and her defence lawyers would boycott the entire appeals process, which she said had degenerated into a “shameful” travesty of justice. “Seeking truth and justice in the Ukrainian courts is completely futile,” she said in a statement from her prison.
Neither the former prime minister nor her lawyers were present in court for the ruling by the Kiev appeals court. Frolova said that it was Tymoshenko’s right to go to the high court and she would have to go through all judicial instances if she is to take her case to the European Court of Human Rights. But the opposition leader has repeatedly made clear she believes she has no chance of obtaining justice in Ukraine and has accused her rival President Viktor Yanukovych of ordering the persecution of herself and her allies.
