Kuchma says there were no grounds to prosecute Tymoshenko in Scherban case during his presidency

“This is a matter for the prosecutor’s office. [Former] Prosecutor
General [Mykhailo] Potebenko reported that at that time there were no
grounds to open a case. That’s all,” Kuchma told reporters on the
sidelines of a roundtable on charity, which was organized by the Victor
Pinchuk Foundation as part of the World Economic Forum in Davos on
Thursday .

The president, who led the country for ten years (from 1995 to 2005),
also added that at that time there were grounds to open such a case
against former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko.

As reported, Scherban’s son, Ruslan Scherban, a member of the Donetsk
Regional Council, said at a press conference on April 4, 2012 that he
had passed documents indicating to Tymoshenko’s and Lazarenko’s possible
involvement in his father’s murder to the Prosecutor General’s Office.

On August 9, 2012, First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin said
that the Prosecutor General’s Office possessed enough evidence to charge
Tymoshenko with complicity in the 1996 murder of MP Yevhen Scherban.

On January 18, 2013, Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka said at a
briefing on January 18 that the Prosecutor General’s Office had finished
its investigation into the criminal case on the murder of MP Scherban,
who was shot dead in 1996, and that Tymoshenko had been notified of
being suspected of having organized the crime, along with Lazarenko.

Tymoshenko and Lazarenko have categorically denied being involved in the murder.

On January 23, Pshonka said that the allegations about Tymoshenko’s
involvement in the murder of MP Scherban were announced back in 2001,
but Tymoshenko had been avoiding her trial.

“Back in 2001, Lazarenko’s advisor said that Tymoshenko was involved
in financing and organizing the murder of Scherban. Therefore this
information is not new and was made public 12 years ago. However,
Tymoshenko has been evading responsibility in every possible way. She
has been hiding behind official posts, an MP’s mandate, political
status, etc.,” Pshonka said.

According to the prosecutor general, law enforcers had questions for Tymoshenko starting from the late 1990s.

“But she has never answered them in any of the criminal cases against
her, which have been numerous over the past 15 years,” he said.

On October 11, 2011, Pechersky District Court in Kyiv sentenced
Tymoshenko to seven years in prison for overstepping her authority when
signing 2009 gas contracts with Russia. She has served her sentence in
Kachanivska Penal Colony in Kharkiv since late December 2011. The
ex-premier is currently undergoing treatment at a Kharkiv-based
hospital.