The High Council of Justice imposed a partial seizure of property in the Tymoshenko case
21 January 15:01
On its third attempt, the High Anti-Corruption Court partially granted the prosecutors’ request to seize the property of Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of the Batkivshchyna faction, who is suspected of bribing MPs during votes in the Verkhovna Rada.
This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to “Suspilne.”
The court’s decision imposed an arrest on garages and cars belonging to the MP’s husband, Oleksandr Tymoshenko. At the same time, the Batkivshchyna leader’s accounts remained unrestricted.
During the hearing, the court considered two separate motions: one concerning the seizure of Tymoshenko’s property and the other concerning items seized by law enforcement during searches.
At the beginning of the hearing, lawyer Oleksandr Gotin provided the court with his client’s income declarations since 2015. He also stated that combining the two motions into one proceeding was unlawful and presented arguments in favor of this position.
The prosecutor, in turn, noted that considering the motions separately could delay the trial.
After hearing the parties, the court concluded that the prosecution’s demands should be partially satisfied and ordered the seizure of the MP’s husband’s property.
The Tymoshenko case
On January 13, NABU and SAP announced the exposure of the head of one of the parliamentary factions, who is suspected of bribing MPs in order to influence voting in the Verkhovna Rada. The name of the suspect was not officially announced, but the details of the case pointed to the leader of the Batkivshchyna faction, Yulia Tymoshenko.
The preliminary legal classification is Part 4 of Article 369 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The article provides for five to ten years of imprisonment with the possibility of confiscation of property.
As part of the pre-trial investigation, law enforcement officers conducted searches at the Batkivshchyna party office. On January 14, Tymoshenko was notified of the suspicion.
The NABU also released audio recordings of a woman’s voice giving instructions on how to vote in parliament. Tymoshenko denied any involvement in the recordings and called the criminal proceedings politically motivated.
On January 15, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) filed a motion with the court to impose a preventive measure in the form of a bail of 50 million hryvnias.
On January 16, the High Anti-Corruption Court imposed a preventive measure on the MP in the form of a bail of 33 million hryvnia and obliged her to fulfill a number of procedural obligations, in particular to appear when summoned by the NABU, not to leave the Kyiv region, to surrender her foreign passport, and to refrain from communicating with certain MPs.
Yulia Tymoshenko has announced her intention to appeal the court’s decision.
