By Iryna HAVRYLOVA, The Day
The Pavlo Lazarenko case will be heard in a California court in San Francisco
this April, Procurator General Mykhailo Potebenko told Interfax Ukraine
when accompanying President Kuchma on his one-day visit to Zaporizhzhia.
Mr. Potebenko feels certain the court will rule to deport Pavlo Lazarenko
to Ukraine. "No one needs people guilty of such grave crimes over there,"
he explained.
In fact, the Prosecutor General's presence among the President's entourage
on that trip caused many raised eyebrows, for the aim of the visit was
to see what can be done to expedite reform of the energy market. One of
Lazarenko's Hromada comrades suggested that "now Mr. Kuchma will always
have his faithful Prosecutor General at hand, for fighting those 'robbing
the people' is his biggest trump." The same People's Deputy also believes
that "those in power are still scared by Lazarenko's possible exposes,
just as they are afraid he will support Leonid Kuchma's rivals."
This is probably why former acting Prosecutor General Oleh Lytvak does
not believe in Lazarenko's quick return to Ukraine: "Pavlo Lazarenko has
the right to turn to any court in any of the fifty States, appealing
any previous deportation ruling. In other words, his case could last years
and years." Mr. Lytvak considers the ex-Premier "a capable, talented man,
and quite eloquent." He further believes that the Hromada leader will be
able to finance the Leftist campaign from overseas, because he believes
in the Left's victory. It is not difficult to predict that Pavlo Lazarenko
will provide this support for the benefit of only one man from the Left
camp.
However, the very fact of Lazarenko's being morally supported by some
lawmakers (among them people from factions that are mostly faithful to
the existing regime) is evidence that not only the former Premier himself
but also certain people in Parliament believe in his "triumphant return
to Ukraine, as was the case with Zvyahilsky."
PS: The Day's Vadym RYZHKOV reports that Natalia Vitrenko
declared at a news conference after setting up a local PSPU organization
in Dnipropetrovsk: "I do not rule out the possibility that Oleksandr Moroz
launched his election campaign using Pavlo Lazarenko's money," and that
"money, unfortunately, is very powerful"






