Сталіністський суд над Тимошенко

http://www.lepoint.fr/monde/le-proces-stalinien-de-ioulia-timochenko-15-12-2011-1408668_24.php

The Stalinist trial of Yulia Tymoshenko

Le Point, 15/12/2011

Ukraine. Sick, emaciated victim of harassment, the former muse of the Orange Revolution languishing in prison.



The two investigators arrive daily at the prison in 14 hours. They enter the cell 242, the second floor, and settled at a table with a stack of documents. Sometimes they leave after half past one. But more generally after four hours. During that time, they keep up the collar of their jackets, as a crack in the frame of the window lets in very cold air in the room of 16 square meters. Facing them, Yulia Tymoshenko, 51, former Prime Minister of Ukraine. She is lying on her bed, her hair loose, reduced coverage on the shoulders and gloves on the hands. "I'm sick, you have no right to come here," she said. "We're sorry, but we have permission of the prison," they reply.Kafkaesque dialogue begins. "You refuse to talk to us?" "I do not refuse, I am suffering." "So we're going to ask you..." And the two agents meet their records meticulously. "You behave like gangsters!"gets carried away sometimes Sergei Vlasenko, counsel for the prisoner, present during questioning. "We are doing our work, we have permission."

It is now three months that the opponent of the regime to the famous blonde braid sleeping Lukyanivka prison, located four metro stops from the center of Kiev. His crime? Have negotiated in 2009, with Russia, a gas deal considered detrimental to the Ukraine. The sentence falls on October 11, seven years in prison. In the West, is in shock. Governments denounce a "political trial" and demanded his release. Brussels is even threatening to stop the running of the country to Europe by renouncing an association agreement negotiated for months. Russia also surprised. "Yulia Tymoshenko has never been my friend, but I do not understand this decision" cowardly Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. "She is in prison because she is afraid!" Sergei Vlasenko said. Paranoia worthy of the Soviet time.The day after the verdict, the government opened four new criminal investigation against her. What add to the sentence of ten years.And the crowd for ever from the political scene.

Because "crime" of Tymoshenko is elsewhere. It embodies the last symbol of the opposition in a country the size of France and independent since the fall of the USSR. Resistance born in December 2004 during the Orange Revolution. At the time, the crowds in Kiev screaming their ras-le-bol of a regime apparatchiks orders from Moscow. Tymoshenko, former owner of a gas company is headed, with his eloquence, charisma and held Louis Vuitton. It promises the end of the mafias and the rapprochement with Europe. Leaders "orange" come to power. It is at the height of his fame, courted by Western leaders and ranked by Forbes the third largest most powerful women in the world.

But it quickly disillusioned. Struggles at the top, endemic corruption... In February 2010, Tymoshenko lost the presidential election against Viktor Yanukovych, 61, the man of the old clan fought six years ago. The defeat of the one we named the "Ukrainian Joan of Arc" turns into a nightmare.

At the bottom of his cell, Tymoshenko has suffered a month of terrible back pain that the nails on his mattress. "He would sometimes have this problem during his travels," says one in his entourage. Except that now the cold prison aggravates her condition. "I brought him blankets and warm clothing, but that's not enough," said her daughter Evgenia, 31, once again allowed to visit him after three weeks of prohibition. "She lost 5 pounds and I fear for his life, "she whispers. Especially since some strange symptoms: red spots the size of a room on his hands and legs, nosebleeds, dizziness and, more recently, a stiffening of the left arm. But another problem arises. She refuses to submit to a blood test. "She feared a hand harmful," said Yuri Sukhov, one of his lawyers. For a memory haunts: the dioxin poisoning of former President Viktor Yushchenko, during a dinner with members of the secret service on the eve of the Orange Revolution. A plot which the person survived but where he left disfigured by the poison. "I did not commit suicide," Tymoshenko warned in a letter delivered to his supporters.

So, it demands the intervention of his personal physician. To no avail. It can join a medical team, but to be held a few meters from her. "It could give her drugs to impair his health and put us in the dock," Inna Bogoslovskaya justified, an MP in charge of instructing the new investigations. "They do everything to break mentally," laments his daughter Evgenia.

Tiny cage. His trial merit, indeed, appear in the annals of Stalinist. With, first, the dose of harassment: the awakening of the prisoner at 5 o'clock in the morning, transfer to the court on placement and 6 hours in a tiny glass cage until the beginning of the hearing... at 9 am "His knees touched the wall," recalls the lawyer Yuri Sukhov. There is also the care taken in the air. The first day the trial opened in a stifling heat. Lawyer, victim of an illness, even to the hospital. "I almost died of dehydration," said Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira, Ambassador of the European Union, came to attend the debate. And then, suddenly, an icy breath escapes from a vent dependent, coincidentally placed over the neck of Tymoshenko, who seized the cold, is forced to wear a coat. Other aberrations: forged documents, some dating to 31 a month with only 30 days. But the 28 defense witnesses challenged to face for no reason 38 prosecution witnesses carefully listened to.

Finally, the last actor in the staging: Rodion Kireyev, Judge. A magistrate of 31 years, no experience, taken from the statistics department of a court on the outskirts of Kiev. Well uncomfortable with his ears reddened with emotion, her right eyebrow raised convulsively and the sweat. "In its place, I would already be at the monastery," says Katerina Tarasova, president of the Association of Ukrainian judges. "I am very afraid for his life, said the lawyer Sergei Vlasenko, because it will one day be the name of the person who ordered him to pronounce the sentence. " Facing him, Tymoshenko is unleashed. "Your Dishonor him she starts staying seated, your mother how she educated? So young and already immoral! You represent the mafia!" On the last day, when he enters the third hour of reading the verdict, she gets up and harangue his followers covering the chanting of the judge: "Be strong against the authoritarian regime!"

Not simple. For the top of its 2 meters, President Viktor Yanukovych makes a great purge. Fifteen former members of the Tymoshenko government are subject to prosecution. And former Ministers of the Interior and Defense are already behind bars. The man was also placed in the center of power from the Donbass his family, his home region, Russian-speaking. Starting with his son Alexander, a dentist forties, now a consultant from the shadows. It is also not the TV channels so far fond of talk shows. Two of them belong to his friends the oligarchs and the third the head of the SBU, the intelligence services. "It gives us the distance of Putin," says the journalist Sergei Leshenko of Ukrayinsha Pravda. And to make matters worse, Yanukovich plays dilettantes: arrival at the palace and 10 hours starting 16 hours.The rest of the time he devoted to hunting, tennis and karaoke as a large property of 135 hectares estimated at over EUR 100 million and acquired in suspicious circumstances. The case Tymoshenko?"It was he who made the decision to imprison him against the advice of some of his entourage, said Oleg Ribatchuk, former head of the presidential administration. For it remains popular and could fight the next election. "

While the blonde Yulia is not a saint. "She has sinned," admits Viktor Nebozhenko, one of his former advisers. In 90 years, she has built its fortune by putting his hand on 20% of the country's economy through its gas distribution company. "She is suspected of having paid at the time the murder of a deputy," said Inna same Bogoslovskaya, head of the investigating commission. "Know that there is no witch hunt, but there's a witch!" says she, pointing his pencil.

Cell infested with insects. For now, the enemy of power just to move. It has long since given up his one-hour walk in the courtyard of the prison. She gets up only to heat water and sprinkle it over the toilet hole. The rest of the day, she read the documents of the charge, the Bible or the latest book by Haruki Murakami. It also casts an eye on TV brought by his family. Finally, she sympathizes with her ​​two fellow inmates, two former employees accused of municipal corruption. One has dedicated a poem. The other stopped smoking at his request.

But the harassment continues. On the night of November 23, guards at the 4:00 wake up and take him to hospital to undergo a scan. The scene shocked. They hang out rather than installing it on a gurney. "Everything is normal", the authorities conclude after examination. Two days later, new bullying: it transfers it to the bottom of the building, in another cell. Cooler, more humid and infested with insects.Goal? The stop to hear the concerts of his supporters came to celebrate her birthday at the gates of the prison. What also feed a bad feeling. That day, she slipped to her daughter: "Prepare your grandmother to the idea that I will stay in jail."