KIEV, Sept. 27 – Prosecutors demanded a seven-year sentence for former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Tuesday in an abuse of power trial that may derail Ukraine’s free trade and political association deals with the European Union.

As the trial resumed after a two-week break, prosecutor Liliya Frolova said the case against Tymoshenko had been "fully proven" and she called for a prison term of seven years.

"We ask ... that a seven-year prison sentence be given," Frolova told the court as hundreds of Tymoshenko supporters rallied outside the courtroom.

The U.S. and the E.U. view the trial as politically motivated and they have urged President Viktor Yanukovych to find a way of ending the case against Tymoshenko.

"We do not think a crime was committed," Oleksandr Plakhotniuk, a member of Tymoshenko’s defense team, said after the judge set the next hearing for Wednesday morning.

The EU ambassador to Ukraine Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira was present in court for Tuesday's morning session in a sign of the trial's importance to the two sides' relations.

Tymoshenko and her supporters claim that the charges filed against both her and some of her closest confidants are part of a revenge campaign launched by the current head of state Viktor Yanukovych -- a claim the president denies.
But a visiting EU official warned earlier this month that if Tymoshenko was convicted and jailed it could deal a major blow to Kiev's EU integration plans.

"If this issue is not being solved and if she indeed is put in prison... it would be problematic," AFP reported citing Stefan Fuele, EU Enlargement Commissioner, who spoke at a recent conference in Yalta. "It would seem to many totally incompatible with the very values that are the basis for the agreement."

The court had earlier in the day dismissed an attempt by the defense to submit new evidence clearing Tymoshenko's name of charges that she overstepped her authority in signing a controversial gas deal with Russia in 2009.

Tymoshenko's "motive in conducting these illegal actions rested in a desire to improve her image in Ukraine and abroad by any means possible,” Frolova said.

The trial was adjourned on September 12 after the U.S. and the EU expressed concern over her prosecution.

Since then, the EU has hardened its position further, warning Yanukovych it could scrap planned bilateral deals on free trade and political association if Tymoshenko is jailed.

Yanukovych's government, which says integration in the European mainstream is the bedrock of its foreign policy, hopes to initial these agreements with the EU at a summit in December.

Before then he has to face top EU officials at a "partnership" summit in Warsaw on September 29-30.
The EU says the Yanukovych leadership has responded favorably to a suggestion that it reclassify the charge against her so as to allow her to go free. (nr/afp/ez)