The next pre-trial hearing of Ukrainian former Premier Pavlo Lazarenko case in San Francisco court is scheduled for March 8, 2002. As Lazarenko family attorney in Ukraine Maryna Dolhopola informed Interfax Ukraine, the American defense hopes that she will be able to achieve closing the case at this hearing. According to, the judge appointed hearings of the “indictment as such’ brought by American prosecutors against Mr. Lazarenko on November 4, 2002. “However, we hope this will not happen,” said Ms. Dolhopola. The last hearing on Lazarenko’s case was held in San Francisco on December 12, 2001.
Last week on the eve of the hearings the San Francisco federal judge declined the attorneys’ petition to withdraw the accusations of money laundering against Pavlo Lazarenko. The defense explained their petition with the fact that receiving bribes wasn’t included into money laundering before President Bush’s latest order after September 11 events. Federal Judge Martin Jenkins said that the US Government instituted proceedings against Mr. Lazarenko not for his alleged crimes in Ukraine but for transporting his illegally obtained property to the US and moving it on the territory of that country.
As Ms. Dolhopola commented on the decision, Mr. Lazarenko’s American attorneys believe the judge’s decision unlawful and contradictory. According to her, “They foresaw such a course of events and have already prepared the necessary documents to appeal this court decision in the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.” Ms. Dolhopola noted that by estimation of the American attorneys, the judge’s new decision would significantly narrow the range of the accusations brought against Mr. Lazarenko earlier.
