Presiding judge Serhiy Vovk has just announced that the court is sentencing former Internal Affairs Minister and opposition leader, Yury Lutsenko to four years imprisonment.

He stated that the court was taking into account the period which Lutsenko had already spent in detention.  The sentence is thus calculated from 27 December 2010.

The court also ordered confiscation of all Lutsenko’s personal property and to ban Lutsenko from holding public office for 3 years.

Lutsenko’s driver Leonid Prystuplyuk was given a 3 year suspended sentence and will from now be on a signed undertaking not to leave.

The suits against Prystuplyuk and Lutsenko in favour of the Pension Fund were allowed in full, in favour of the MIA – partially.

http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2012/02/27/6959562/

Yury Lutsenko’s application to the European Court of Human Rights over his detention has been scheduled for 17 April 2012.  The Court has announced that the hearing will be public.

Today’s sentence directly snubs the resolution passed by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

The prosecution of Yury Lutsenko has been condemned both in Ukraine and throughout the democratic world as politically motivated and aimed at removing him from this year’s elections.

If you have not done so already, please endorse the appeal ZERO TOLERANCE FOR POLITICAL PERSECUTION IN UKRAINE here http://www.khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1325325198 / http://blogs.telekritika.ua/?id=2710&  (the signatures are under the Ukrainian version at the second URL)