Posted on 10/11/2011 7:12:57 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Ukraine Court Sentences Tymoshenko To Seven Years In Jail
A police officer tries to calm Yulia Tymoshenko as she reacts to the verdict.
Last updated (GMT/UTC): 11.10.2011 14:08
By RFE/RL
KYIV -- Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been jailed for seven years and penalized tens of millions of dollars over abuse-of-office charges in a verdict the European Union says could have "profound implications" for relations.
The accusations stem from a 2009 natural-gas deal Tymoshenko signed with Russia.
Judge Rodion Kireyev said Tymoshenko's actions had caused the state damages amounting to 1.5 billion hryvna (some $190 million) and he fined her that amount.
In addition to her prison term, she will be barred from holding a government position for three more years.
As the lengthy verdict was being read out, there was angry reaction from thousands of Tymoshenko's supporters who had gathered outside of the courtroom ahead of the ruling. Hundreds of police, many in riot gear, were deployed in Kyiv's central Pechersk district to prevent violence. (See video below.)
(Excerpt) Read more at rferl.org ...
P!
Big whoop she signed a gas contract. What’s criminal about that?
Democracy in Ukraine is not a foregone conclusion. Politics there makes the Chicago mob look like kindergarten stuff.
the nu soviet.
probably using the same training manual though
Please, please, let the Messiah visit a Ukraine Court then clamp a set of cuffs on him and try the POS!
There is no comparison. Political parties are formed just to confuse the voters. Bus loads and even train loads of people are moved to other oblasts, somewhat like our states, to vote. The ruling party in the past has directly accessed the central computer system to “massage” the vote count. Groups from regions with specific business interests will support one or more parties. The collaborations are fluid. Throw in murder and every dirty tactic and then imagine it as being orders of magnitudes worse than anything the Chicago machine can do.
On top of all of that, add calling on the army to suppress demonstrations with the hope there will be lots of casualties to deter the opposition. The commander of the army refused.
I hope a death pool isn’t necessary.
Friends living in those parts told me that she had made her fortune during the Commie times selling counterfit CDs and tapes from a bazaar booth in the Ukraine (not that there was anything wrong with that at the time, though for Eastern Euros, that is definitely low class and suspect. You know, black market, private initiative, white trash, etc.)
Are you sure there is no comparison? The level of corruption there is no doubt much worse(at the moment, but I can sure think of parallels that apply to what has been happening here-and not just in Chicago.
Ah, but there is a comparison. We’re just a more advanced, more cultured political system, you might say. In the Ukraine a Communist party will call itself ‘Communist Party’ or “Worker’s Party”, while a fascist party will call itself “Nationalist party” or something else close to the truth of its ideology, and not as you assert to confuse voters. Ideology is out in the open and named.
Here? The Communists (and fascists) will infiltrate the two major parties and camouflage themselves as democrats.
You may have in banana republics or the Ukraine some corruption where one has to bribe a postman, here we have something better, as described above, what I call intellectual corruption. Politicians as well as voters have become corrupt. I doubt that an Obama could run on a mainstream party’s ticket anywhere in Europe, and as a Communist, which he clearly is, he wouldn’t win anywhere.
She should have fled the country as soon as Tsar Vlad’s Puppet “defeated” her in the Presidential election.
The only thing she is guilty of is having an awesome Princess Leia hairdo.
My bet is that her sentence will be commuted and she will be back in the game.
Yanukovitch is a Russian toady and does not even speak the Ukrainian language. Also he is a convicted felon who did jail time.
None of this is going away.
The way things are going, I won’t be surprised if Ukraine breaks up into two.
And what is Kiev like today? How are things in the former soviets? There is a dearth of information about what is happening in the ex-Soviet and east bloc countries as far the lives of the average citizens.
Should have seen this coming when a Putin Puppet took power. She was crazy for staying.
Newer Kiev on the flat plain on the east side of the river is heavy with new construction, mostly unattractive.
Ukraine's biggest issue is the pervasive, pandemic corruption. It affects real estate, banking and politics.The effect is a two tiered economy, one capitalist and one "black" i.e.under the table.There is big big money in Ukraine, but a lot of it is off the radar.
As to the Russians and the possibility of Ukraine splitting up, well I don't think so. The Ukrainians have gotten their religion back. Too, there are still people alive who lived through the "Holodomor", the deliberate famine created by Stalin which killed 10 million Ukrainians. Russians are not particularly liked in Ukraine but tolerated.
I still think that sooner or later Yanukovitch will have to go. The hope for Ukraine is a reformist patriot to clean up the corruption.
Sorry to be so long, but there you are.
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