The Ukrainian high court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal filed by jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko in a move that was denounced by the European Union.
With the ruling, Tymoshenko will now be forced to serve out her seven-year sentence for a conviction handed down last year over corruption charges relating to a gas deal with Russia when she was prime minister. Her supporters and Western powers have denounced her trial and sentencing as a sham that serves to strengthen her opponent Viktor Yanukovych’s rule over Ukraine.
“The panel of judges found the appeal unjustified,” Judge Oleksandr Yelfimov said, reading the court’s ruling aloud, according to Interfax Ukraine.
Her lawyers asked the court to acquit her and close the case against her because of a lack of evidence. Prosecutors told the judges that she should serve out her sentence.
Tymoshenko is considered the main driving force behind the 2004 “Orange Revolution” that widely promoted democracy in the country. She ran for president and lost to Yanukovych, but her popularity remained high among Ukrainians.
Eugenia Tymoshenko, her daughter, said that there is no more hope that her mother will receive a fair hearing in Ukraine, according to a statement published on the former opposition leader’s website.
“Today we obtained a disgraceful verdict, which again proves that a dictatorship has been established in Ukraine. We won’t stop fighting,” the younger Tymoshenko said, adding that a legal team will submit a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights.
