Tymoshenko not to ask Yanukovych for pardon, says lawyer

16:10, 03.10.2012 1 min read

Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko will not ask Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych for a pardon, her defense lawyer, Serhiy Vlasenko, has said.

"Only a person who committed a crime can ask for a pardon. Yulia Tymoshenko did not commit any crime. But I emphasize that from the formal legal point of view, Yanukovych does not need Tymoshenko's application for pardon. He should first issue a decree to reinstate the wording of the decree approving the pardon procedure before October 2010. In a second decree, he should make his decision. So he needs two seconds to do it: a second for the first decree and a second for the other decree," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.

In his opinion, Yanukovych also has other opportunities "to resolve the issue of Tymoshenko and save face."

"European politicians often ask me whether Yanukovych could resolve this issue and save face. I say that he has had a million of these opportunities, but he does not want to realize them. He is so afraid of Tymoshenko that he does not want to release her from prison," Vlasenko said.