Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych will exercise his right to pardon former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko at the earliest opportunity, a non-staff adviser to the president, MP Hanna Herman of the Party of Regions, has said.

"I have repeatedly said that I believe in the president's mercy and I believe that the time will come when he will be able to use his right to grant pardon to Yulia Volodymirivna [Tymoshenko]," Herman said on the air of Radio Liberty.

According to her, this requires all judicial proceedings against Tymoshenko to be completed.

"She should not be hiding from the trial. She should participate in the trial and show the public that she has nothing to hide. I believe that when all is over, no doubt everything will be done to ease her fate, despite the fact that the courts' rulings may be different, because there are really serious accusations there," she said.

As reported, on April 18, 2013, more than 20 women MPs, including Lilia Hrynevych, Liudmyla Denisova, Oleksandra Kuzhel, Iryna Lutsenko, and Maria Matios, signed the petition to pardon Tymoshenko and sent it to President Viktor Yanukovych. On April 19, the petition was submitted to the president's commission on pardons.

More than 100 various petitions for pardoning Tymoshenko have been sent to the president since the ex-premier's imprisonment.

On April 27, the Ukrainian presidential commission on pardons said it will not recommend Yanukovych to grant Tymoshenko's pardon request.

Kyiv's Pechersky District Court on October 11, 2011 sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years in prison for exceeding her powers when signing gas supply contracts with Russia in 2009. She has served her sentence in the Kharkiv Kachanivska Penal Colony since late December 2011.

A court is currently considering a case on the financial irregularities of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) Corporation, which was earlier led by Tymoshenko.

Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka said on January 18, 2013 that the Prosecutor General's Office had completed an investigation into Scherban's murder and notified Tymoshenko that she was suspected, along with former Prime Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Lazarenko, of organizing the parliamentarian's killing.