KIEV — Ukraine's former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of office, has been charged with tax evasion, theft and concealing foreign currency revenues, the State Tax Administration said Friday.
The new charges indicate that she is less likely to go free in the near future despite calls from the West for her release, keeping Ukraine's ties with the European Union strained.
The charges are linked to her activities as head of gas trading firm United Energy Systems of Ukraine, a post she held in the 1990s, an administration statement said.
Her lawyer, Serhiy Vlasenko, dismissed them as "baseless."
Prosecutors have said they could launch more cases against Tymoshenko and were studying her possible involvement in a 1996 contract killing of a parliamentary deputy.
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