KIEV, May 11 - RAPSI. Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko has called absurd an official's statement that she may soon be charged with arranging a politician's murder in 1996.

First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin said in an interview yesterday with the ErActiv online publication that prosecutors are prepared to press murder charges against Tymoshenko in two weeks for organizing MP and businessman Evegeny Shcherban's assassination.

However, he added that pressing charges does not necessarily mean that a trial will commence, as Tymoshenko is undergoing treatment and by Ukrainian law a sick individual cannot be prosecuted.

Her attorney does not rule out that the statement was made intentionally in the run-up to the Supreme Specialized Court's hearing of her appeal in the notorious gas case on May 15.

Vlasenko believes her seven-year custodial sentence must be reversed.

Shcherban, the former head of the Aton financial corporation and an MP, was shot dead together with his wife and an airport employee at a Donetsk airport in 1996. Eight individuals were arrested on suspicion of his assassination in early 2002. The court declared them guilty and three suspects were sentenced to life in prison.