Women's request to pardon Tymoshenko forwarded to pardons commission
KYIV. April 19 (Interfax) - The request made by women parliamentarians to pardon Ukraine's former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been forwarded to the Ukrainian presidential pardons commission.
Te commission will consider the request and make its proposals to President Viktor Yanukovych, the presidential press service reported.
According to earlier reports, the request was signed by more than twenty female parliamentarians, in particular, Liliya Grinevich, Lyudmila Denisova, Alexandra Kuzhel, Irina Lutsenko, and Maria Matios. The request was given to Yanukovych on April 18.
Over 100 requests to pardon Tymoshenko have been sent to Yanukovych in the course of Tymoshenko's imprisonment, the site has reported.
The Ukrainian president has received more than 100 different petitions seeking Tymoshenko's release from prison since the former prime minister was convicted in 2011. They were submitted by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union (April 10, 2013), the heads of Christian churches (April 2012), and people holding the Hero of Ukraine title, representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, writers, artists, scholars and prominent public and political figures (March 2012). Apart from that, more than 20,000 Ukrainian citizens signed a plea asking Yanukovych to pardon Tymoshenko.
On October 11, 2011, Kyiv's Pechersky District Court sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years in prison for exceeding her authority when signing the gas deals with Russia in 2009. She was transferred to a penal colony in Kharkiv in late December 2011.
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