Tymoshenko Portal Launched Documenting her "Life and Crimes"

The Tymoshenko Case (http://www.thetymoshenkocase.com) was inspired by Inna Bohoslovska a Ukrainian MP who said she wanted to create a fully documented account of Tymoshenko's public life, backed up by evidence in the form of primary source data, parliamentary investigation information, and original documentation.

Bohoslovska chaired a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the conditions of the signing in 2009 of Yulia Tymoshenko's controversial gas deal with Russia's Gazprom that led to her imprisonment.

Bohoslovska said her site is written in English because it is beyond Ukraine's borders where people are most misinformed about Tymoshenko.

"We are launching this site so that the documented facts can speak for themselves. Tymoshenko is not, as some in the West may think, a Nelson Mandela or Aung San Suu Kyi figure.  She is a controversial former billionaire businesswoman who obtained control of the gas monopoly from a government whose leader is now in jail in California for money laundering. In Ukraine she is no longer even popular, and today most people equate Tymoshenko with poor leadership and shady business dealings in the past," Bohoslovska said.

"It is only in parts of Europe that much of the mainstream media treat Tymoshenko as an eternal victim. We aim to show them why she is not a victim or martyr, but a controversial politician," she said.  She added that that contacts with foreign politicians, experts and journalists have persuaded her "that the degree of knowledge outside Ukraine is very partial, to say the least."

"That's why I thought we needed an English site. To tell the truth about her life and crimes backed up with hard evidence. Tymoshenko doesn't like the facts because they do her no favours," she said.

Bohoslovska has invited Tymoshenko to read the site and respond.

"I challenge Yulia Tymoshenko to visit this website, take her time to read it and respond," she said.

"She'll be the only reader not surprised by what she has done.

"The only thing I ask is that she also backs up her responses with evidence just as we have done. I'll happily put her responses on the website," she said.

Bohoslovska said while many people have heard of Tymoshenko - who is also known as "The Gas Princess" in the Ukraine - and the Russian gas deal that continues to force Ukrainians to pay over the odds for gas, few people know the full story. In fact, Bohoslovska noted that the 2009 gas deal Tymoshenko negotiated was rejected by her entire Cabinet of Ministers, who asked her not to sign.

Bohoslovska said even fewer know about Tymoshenko's involvement in other dubious activities. She details on the site the story of how Tymoshenko conspired to buy Opel cars on the public purse under the guise of medical equipment.

Bohoslovska said she was motivated to create a website to better inform western readers who view her entire nation through, what she calls, Tymoshenko's "web of deceit."