Fresh doubt on EU trade deal after Tymshenko lawyer ´held by police´

by Martin Banks

Prosecutors in Kiev are questioning the lawyer, Serhiy Vlasenko - 24 hours before the deadline given by the EU´s two envoys to Ukraine for effectively freeing Tymoshenko.

The two EU envoys - former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and former European Parliament President Pat Cox - last week told Ukrainian legislators to adopt a law by 13 November that would allow Tymoshenko to be flown to Germany for medical treatment.

Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych and his allies in parliament have resisted that pressure to free Tymoshenko, who was convicted of abuse of office while negotiating a gas deal with Russia in 2009.

She insists she is innocent and accuses Yanukovych of ordering her imprisonment in order to bar her from challenging him in the 2015 presidential election.

Tymoshenko, a leader of the 2004 Orange Revolution, is currently being treated under prison guard for a back injury.

The latest news will be seen as a further setback to EU plans to sign a wide ranging Association Agreement with Ukraine in Lithuania at the end of this month.

The continuing uncertainty about Tymoshenko has fuelled doubt about whether it will go ahead, said Roger Helmer, a senior British Member of the European Parliameant.

Elsewhere, Ukraine MP Pavlo Petrenkom, of the Batkivschyna faction, said the situation with Vlasenko should show the EU that Yanukovych and the Party of Regions "have changed Ukraine's integration course."

Ukraine's parliament last Friday was unable to reach an agreement that would allow Tymoshenko to go to Germany for medical treatment.

Ahead of the EU mission´s 13 November deadline, Brussels is making last minute efforts to pressure Yanukovych to release and pardon Tymoshenko.

This remains the key condition for signing the EU agreement, along with various reforms to Ukraine's electoral and legal systems.

Tymoshenko was jailed for seven years in 2011 for abuse of office after what Western governments say was a political trial.

Her party last week rejected the terms for her release and the two European envoys warned that time was running out to solve the problem.

A massive campaign in support of Tymoshenko has taken place, particularly in Germany, over recent months.

Kiev’s attempts to conclude the agreement have been supported within the EU above all by Germany and Poland.

On November 18, EU foreign ministers will decide whether Ukraine has met the necessary conditions for the association agreement.

Meanwhile, Russian firm Gazprom has said Ukraine has paid just a "fraction" of its debt, raising concern of a winter-time gas cut-off.

The warning is being widely seen as a further Russian pressure to Ukraine not to sign the deal with the EU on 28 November.

UK MEP William Dartmouth said, "Ms Tymoshenko's 7 year prison sentence has always seemed politically motivated. The detention of her defence lawyer would seem to confirm this. Nevertheless, Ukraine sends a judge to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The Ukrainian judge rules on Human Rights in the UK. The argument is clear we should withdraw from the ECHR."