Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych has promised to consider the possibility of pardoning Ukraine's former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko if the High Specialized Court declines his cassation appeal.

"If the court doesn't release him [Lutsenko], I will consider pardoning him. Then it will be my turn," Yanukovych told a final press conference in Kyiv on Friday.

The High Specialized Court for Civil and Criminal Cases has not considered the appeal contesting the sentence imposed on Lutsenko yet.

"Honestly speaking, I have known Yuriy Lutsenko for a long time and I'm humanly sorry for him. He is suffering because of the silly things he has done, including the thing with the driver. He wanted to do a good job, but he ended up committing a crime," the president said.

"Sincerely, despite the fact that he [Lutsenko] is trying to look like a big opposition activist, his suffering doesn't make me happy. He is in a very difficult situation," Yanukovych said.

Lutsenko was detained on December 25, 2010. He was arrested under a court ruling several days later.

On February 27, 2012, the Kyiv Pechersky District Court found Lutsenko guilty of several crimes and sentenced him to four years in prison. The Kyiv Court of Appeals upheld that sentence. On August 17, 2012, the Pechersky District Court found Lutsenko guilt of negligence in the extension of operational search activities on Valentyn Davydenko, who worked as a driver for Volodymyr Satsiuk, former deputy head of the Ukrainian Security Service, and sentenced him to two years of restriction of freedom.

The former interior minister has been serving his sentence for several crimes in the Mena colony, Chernihiv region, since late August 2012.

The High Specialized Court has not yet determined the date of the trial of the cassation appeal filed by the former interior minister contesting the sentence handed out by the Pechersky District Court, which was later upheld by a court of appeals.