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TYMOSHENKO'S HUSBAND RELEASED FROM JAIL. Oleksandr Tymoshenko, the husband of former Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and current opposition leader Yuliya Tymoshenko, was released from jail on 9 August after a court ruled he could not be held while awaiting trial any longer, Reuters reported. The former director of the Ukrainian Unified Energy Systems gas monopoly was arrested in August 2000 on charges of embezzling $800,000 from the state and smuggling Russian gas. Prosecutors had intended to hold Tymoshenko until February, and Deputy Prosecutor-General Mykola Obikhod said the Prosecutor-General's Office will appeal the decision. Yuliya Tymoshenko is currently facing charges in both Ukraine and Russia for fraud and bribery from 1995-1997, when she headed the gas monopoly. She says the charges are part of a smear campaign led by President Leonid Kuchma to discredit her ahead of March parliamentary elections. DW

UKRAINIAN PROSECUTORS TO BRING CASE VS. EX-PREMIER TO COURT. Deputy Prosecutor-General Obikhod announced that prosecutors have completed preparing their case against former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko on embezzlement charges, ITAR-TASS reported on 9 August. Obikhod said the case, involving allegations that Lazarenko accepted $120 million in bribes and embezzled $20 million, will be sent to court in the nearest future. Lazarenko, currently in a federal prison outside San Francisco, also faces charges of conspiracy in the U.S. and money laundering in Switzerland (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 24 July 2001). DW