KIEV, Oct. 5 – Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko will be sentenced soon but released shortly afterwards following the expected approval of legislation submitted by President Viktor Yanukovych, a newspaper reported Wednesday, citing a pro-government lawmaker.

The judge is expected to start delivering the verdict on October 11, but Tymoshenko will be released before Yanukovych’s visit to Brussels, preliminarily scheduled for October 20, the lawmaker said.

The trial of Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s most popular opposition leader, is carefully watched by European Union officials for indications whether the country’s authorities are committed to democracy.

The trial has been described as a politically motivated persecution of Yanukovych’s political opponents, a charge that Yanukovych has repeatedly denied. Sill, the sentencing of Tymoshenko may undermine Ukraine’s free trade and political association deals with the EU.

European leaders have put mounting pressure on Yanukovych over the past two weeks seeking to persuade him that Tymoshenko is released from custody and allowed to run for a seat in Parliament next year.

But apparently the plan is that she will be released only after the guilty verdict has been announced.

“Tymoshenko will be sentenced,” Dzerkalo Tyzhnia reported citing the lawmaker who is familiar with the plan. “In the public opinion, Tymoshenko must stay guilty.”

But the release of Tymoshenko will be made possible after legislation is approved to relieve senior political figures of prosecution for alleged abuse of authority while in office.

Tymoshenko, for example, is charged with abusing authority while being the prime minister and forcing Naftogaz Ukrayiny to sign a controversial 10-year natural gas agreement with Gazprom in January 2009.

“Neither bars nor walls will be able to keep us apart,” Tymoshenko said in a letter to her supporters posted on her Facebook account on Wednesday as she is expecting the verdict.

“This is the time when we – as never before – have to stay together. Every word of support, every shoulder, every joint victory is as precious as gold,” Tymoshenko said. “Courage and unity of honest people is what every dictator is afraid of. This is what sweeps regimes away.”

The most crucial part of the plan is to approve the legislation, something that pro-government lawmakers have so far refused to support.

On Wednesday lawmakers rejected two bills, drafted by opposition figures, allowing freeing Tymoshenko, and also Yuriy Lutsenko, a former interior minister, from custody immediately.

But Parliament is expected on Thursday to debate another bill, submitted by Yanukovych, which is expected to be approved in the first reading.

Although the bill does not have a clause allowing to free Tymoshenko, it will most likely be added during the second reading of the bill, tentatively scheduled on October 18, according to the lawmaker familiar with the plan.

Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn on Wednesday suggested that Yanukovych’s bill must be amended in the second reading to include an article that would allow freeing Tymoshenko.

“It’s not a coincidence that I was trying to calm down [opposition] lawmakers. We need to maintain a room for maneuvering,” Lytvyn said.

“We should accept the president’s bill and while preparing it for the second reading to carefully look again at the bills that had been rejected today in the session hall,” Lytvyn said. (tl/ez)