EU Urges Kyiv To End 'Selective Justice'

Former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko leaves prison on April 7.

BRUSSELS -- The European Union is calling on Kyiv to address the "problem of selective justice."

In Brussels on April 8, Peter Stano, the spokesman for EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele, said the presidential pardons on April 7 for former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko and former Environment Minister Heorhiy Filipchuk were a "first important step, but not the final one."

He said, "Now we are looking forward to Ukraine addressing, without further delay, the outstanding case of selective justice."

Stano was apparently referring to jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych pardoned Lutsenko and Filipchuk, Tymoshenko allies, just days after a court upheld Lutsenko's sentence on charges of embezzlement.

The imprisonment of Tymoshenko is seen by the European Union as politically motivated and a major roadblock to Ukraine's European integration.