A Russian businessman Vladimir Tkach was released right from the court-room at the Shevchenkovsky district court on 22 April. The amount needed for bail was one million hryvnas – that’s about $200,000.  

During his two-year stay Mr. Tkach has accumulated two plastic bags of documents while being behind bars in the famous Lukyanovsky pre-trial prison – that’s the place where Yulia Timoshenko herself used to be kept in custody. Most part of the mentioned period the prosecution just jangled on his nerves and did not carry out any investigative actions.   

It appeared that Vladimir Tkach was just taken hostage. He considers the case was framed on him by the oligarchs from the president’s Yushchenko’s entourage. Allegedly, that way he was punished for supporting the Ukrainian oppositionist politician Alexander Zinchenko and for mediation in the Russian business matters in the country.    

Reminding, Vladimir Tkach was arrested in March 2006 shortly before the parliamentary elections. That was done on the Kiev-Moscow train. He was charged with fraud related to tourist business. The testimony by 13 victims had been collected by the moment of the arrest. Afterwards, with the offices of belonging to the businessman firms being sealed up, the clients began to panic and the number of “victims” came up to 120 people.  

Novaya Gazeta has informed repeatedly about peculiarities of the pre-trial investigation. Well, the court has proved that the efforts by investigators from the prosecutor’s office were in vain. Most “victims” affirm they signed all the contracts of their own will. Prosecution tried to prove the facts of affecting the mental states of the clients through the use of mind-blenders and this is how they interpreted the testimony given.   

“Those people just got to suffer from political showdown” explained Vladimir Tkach to a Novaya Gazeta correspondent. “So my first task now is to fulfill my obligations to my clients, even considering the fact that the contracts with most of them are expired”.