KIEV, April 12 - A Ukrainian court on Thursday sentenced a top ally of jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to five years in prison for abuse of office, the AP reported.
The Pechersk district court in Kiev found former acting Defense Minister Valery Ivashchenko guilty of abusing his office during the sell-off of a state shipbuilding plant in 2009. Ivashchenko denied any wrongdoing, calling the verdict unjust and politically motivated.
Tymoshenko, the country's top opposition leader, is serving a seven-year prison term on charges of abuse of office after a verdict that has been condemned by the West as politically driven. Yuriy Lutsenko, the interior minister in Tymoshenko's Cabinet, has also been sentenced to four years in prison on charges of embezzlement and abuse of office.
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