Ukraine Government Plans to Charge Ex-Premier With Murder

The charges, which carry a potential sentence of life in prison if she is convicted, are the gravest accusations yet in a series of criminal prosecutions that Western governments have denounced as politically motivated and that Ms. Tymoshenko is fighting in the European Court of Human Rights.

The decision to bring a murder case against Ms. Tymoshenko was announced by Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Viktor Pshonka, at a news conference on Friday. He said that Ms. Tymoshenko, and another former prime minister, Pavlo Lazarenko, paid $2.8 million to have Yevhen Scherban, who was both a lawmaker and one of Ukraine’s richest businessmen, killed in a dispute over business interests.

“The material which has been assembled in the pretrial investigation shows that Tymoshenko indeed ordered the killing together with Lazarenko,” Mr. Pshonka told reporters in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.

Ms. Tymoshenko has been jailed since October 2011, when she was convicted on charges of abusing her position in connection with approving a contract to purchase natural gas from Russia. She has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, complaining of judicial missteps and human rights abuses, and a decision is expected soon.

Her supporters said the murder case was an effort by the Yanukovich government to pre-empt a decision by the court, which is expected to verify numerous abuses and order Ms. Tymoshenko’s release. Even a team of American lawyers hired by the Yanukovich administration to review the case has said her legal rights were violated during trial, witnesses were blocked from testifying and she was wrongly jailed before her conviction and sentencing.

“They do not conceal that they want to hold not only the opposition leader but all of Ukraine behind bars for life,” Ms. Tymoshenko’s political party, Ukrainian United Opposition Fatherland, said in a statement on Friday evening.

“Understanding that the European Court of Human Rights will put an end to the dirty and empty tricks against Yulia Tymoshenko in the near future, Yanukovich’s associates have resorted to a deeply brazen and mendacious step,” the party said.

Ms. Tymoshenko, 52, has continued to excoriate Mr. Yanukovich from the prison hospital in eastern Ukraine where she is being held, but she has been having back problems, and one of her lawyers said her health has deteriorated sharply in recent days.

Because of her poor health and inability to appear in court, a judge on Friday suspended proceedings in a second trial against Ms. Tymoshenko, this one on tax evasion charges.

Her imprisonment sidelined her from participation in the Ukrainian parliamentary elections this fall, helping Mr. Yanukovich’s Party of Regions expand its majority. Some analysts have suggested that Mr. Yankovich’s main goal is to keep her in jail until after the 2015 presidential election, easing his path to a second five-year term.