Lazarenko planning to return to Ukraine to participate in local elections

18:24

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko is planning to return to Ukraine to participate in the local elections on October 31, 2010.

Lazarenko said this in a statement distributed by his lawyer Maryna Dolhopola on Tuesday.

"The first step will be the participation of the Hromada [Community] Party, which I head, in the local elections. We will unite under the flags of Hromada the best representatives of the political and business elite not only in Dnipropetrovsk region, but also across central Ukraine," reads the statement.

Lazarenko also said he was planning to form a political force on the basis of the Hromada Party, "which will become a real, constructive and professional alternative to the current authorities."

As reported, Lazarenko was convicted in the United States of embezzling funds illegally received and transferring them to foreign accounts in 1994-1999. A Californian court sentenced Lazarenko to nine years in prison in August 2006. He remained in his apartment in San Francisco under house arrest pending the consideration of the appeal against his conviction.

In June 2010, the prison sentence for Lazarenko was reduced by seven months, and now he is to be released on January 11, 2012.

Lazarenko headed the Ukrainian government from June 1996 to June 1997.