Ukraine's Tymoshenko to appeal 7-year jail sentence

Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko would appeal to the Ukrainian Supreme Court against her seven-year jail sentence, her lawyer Sergei Vlasenko said Wednesday. "In the near future, the defense team will appeal to the Supreme Court against the illegal and politically motivated verdict in the gas case," Vlasenko told reporters in a press conference. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that the arrest of Tymoshenko was unlawful came into force earlier Wednesday, allowing the ex-premier to appeal against her conviction, Vlasenko said. The 52-year-old opposition leader, who is serving her term in an out-of-prison health center in eastern Ukraine, was sentenced by a Kiev court to seven years in prison in October 2011 over abusing her power in a gas supply deal with Russia in 2009. Tymoshenko also faces charges of embezzlement and tax evasion in connection with business deals she did in the early 1990s. She has also been named as a suspect in the 1996 murder of Ukrainian lawmaker Volodymyr Sherban. Tymoshenko has long insisted her prosecution was politically motivated and that her detention was unlawful. Last April, the ECHR ruled her imprisonment was a politically motivated violation of her rights