A prosecutor has charged former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko with abuse of office and ordered her to stay in Kiev for the course of the investigation, government officials confirmed Tuesday, DPA reported.
It was not immediately clear what action by Tymoshenko had prompted the charges, but officials said last week that the former premier was being investigated for using money raised from the sale of carbon credits to cover a budget shortfall when she was in office.
Ukrainian law requires parliamentary approval to shift carbon credit funds away from energy-saving programmes.
Yuriy Boichenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office, told Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday that formal criminal charges had been brought against Tymoshenko.
"She is now a defendant," he said. "She has been ordered to remain in Kiev."
He declined to provide details on the charges against her, but a document posted on the Ukrainska Pravda website appeared to be an indictment for the alleged misdirection of carbon credit funds to cover a 221-million-dollar gap in the 2009 national pension fund.
Boichenko would neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of the document.
Tymoshenko has denied all wrongdoing and has claimed she is being targeted in a vendetta by President Viktor Yanukovych, her political rival.
A court hearing on the prosecutor's allegations will vindicate her, she said in Monday comments.
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