Tymoshenko not refusing to give evidence in Scherban's case, says GPO

Ukraine's former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, has not yet given evidence in the criminal case on the murder of MP Yevhen Scherban in 1996, but she has not flatly refused to give such evidence either, Deputy Head of the Main Investigation Department of the Prosecutor General's Office Lilia Frolova has said.

"So far, she has not given testimony... but she hasn't categorically refused [to give evidence on Scherban case as a suspect] either," Frolova told reporters in Kyiv on Thursday.

Kyiv's Pechersky Court found Tymoshenko guilty of abuse of office in concluding a gas supply agreement with Russia in 2009 and sentenced her to seven years in prison on October 11, 2011. She has been serving her prison term at a penitentiary in Kharkiv since December 2011.

Pshonka said at a news conference on January 18 that the Prosecutor General's Office had completed the investigation into Scherban's assassination and officially notified Tymoshenko that she and former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko were suspected of organizing this murder for mercenary reasons.

A Kyiv court has questioned several witnesses on the Scherban murder case in Tymoshenko's absence.

Scherban, a member of the Liberal Party's executive committee and a Verkhovna Rada deputy, was shot and killed at Donetsk airport on arriving from Moscow on November 3, 1996. The gunmen fled the scene by car. Scherban, his wife and a mechanic died on the spot from gunshot wounds. The plane's flight engineer died later in the hospital. The law enforcement ruled out political motives behind the case.

The Luhansk Regional Court of Appeals sentenced Vadym Bolotskykh to life for Scherban's murder in April 2003.