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NEWS and REPORTS => World News => Topic started by: YahooNews on Nov 14, 2013, 07:31 PM

Title: Ukraine's Yanukovich pushes hard line on Tymoshenko release
Post by: YahooNews on Nov 14, 2013, 07:31 PM
By Richard Balmforth KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich signaled on Thursday that he would let jailed opponent Yulia Tymoshenko go to Germany for medical treatment, but only if she went there as a convicted person. With the signing this month of landmark agreements with the European Union hanging in the balance over the Tymoshenko question, Yanukovich took a hard line saying the law could not be used "as a means of evading criminal responsibility". Ex-prime minister Tymoshenko, Yanukovich's most dangerous opponent, was jailed for seven years in 2011 for abuse of office after what the EU says was a political trial. The EU sees her as a victim of "selective justice", which it wants ended in the ex-Soviet republic as a condition for signing a free trade agreement with Ukraine on November 28 at a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.