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Ukraine ex-PM Tymoshenko freed Crowds hail Ukraine ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko
(about 3 hours later)
The Ukrainian opposition leader and former Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, has been freed from jail. Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has arrived in Independence Square in the heart of Kiev to cheers of thousands after being freed from prison.
It follows a vote by parliament to release her after President Viktor Yanukovych fled the capital Kiev. She is addressing the crowds there from her wheelchair.
Speaking after her release, she said "the dictatorship has fallen". Just hours earlier, she was freed following a vote by parliament on Friday demanding her release.
Speaking after President Viktor Yanukovych had left the capital Kiev, she said a "dictatorship has fallen".
She was sentenced to seven years in jail in 2011 after a controversial verdict on her actions as prime minister.She was sentenced to seven years in jail in 2011 after a controversial verdict on her actions as prime minister.
She left the hospital in the eastern city of Kharkiv, where she had been held under prison guard, and flew to Kiev.
She told journalists at Kiev airport that those behind violence "must be punished", the Interfax agency reports.
On Thursday, the bloodiest day of recent unrest, at least 21 protesters and one policeman died.
Old enemies
Ukraine's parliament also voted on Saturday to remove President Viktor Yanukovich and set an early election for 25 May, completing a radical transformation in the former Soviet republic of 46 million people.
The vote came after police stopped guarding presidential buildings, allowing protesters in, and parliament made new high-level appointments.
Mr Yanukovych said it was a "coup" and vowed not to stand down.
The opposition is now in effective control of the capital Kiev, with Mr Yanukovych in Kharkiv, near the Russian border, after travelling there late on Friday night.
The Interfax news agency reported parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchynov as saying Mr Yanukovych had been stopped by border police in an attempt to flee to Russia and was now somewhere in the Donetsk region.
Earlier on Saturday, protesters walked unchallenged into the president's office and residential compounds.
Fiery orator
Ms Tymoshenko's release has always been a key demand of the protest movement.
The glamorous, fiery orator who helped lead the Orange Revolution - Ukraine's revolt against a controversial election in 2004 - was convicted of criminally exceeding her powers when she agreed a gas deal with Russia which was seen to have disadvantaged Ukraine.The glamorous, fiery orator who helped lead the Orange Revolution - Ukraine's revolt against a controversial election in 2004 - was convicted of criminally exceeding her powers when she agreed a gas deal with Russia which was seen to have disadvantaged Ukraine.
She has always insisted the charges were untrue, inspired by Mr Yanukovych, the man she helped oust in 2004 who returned to defeat her in the 2010 presidential election.She has always insisted the charges were untrue, inspired by Mr Yanukovych, the man she helped oust in 2004 who returned to defeat her in the 2010 presidential election.
The European Union had demanded her release as one of the conditions of the EU-Ukraine trade pact that President Yanukovych rejected last year - triggering the protests that led to the current crisis.The European Union had demanded her release as one of the conditions of the EU-Ukraine trade pact that President Yanukovych rejected last year - triggering the protests that led to the current crisis.
Olha Lappo, spokeswoman for the Fatherland party Ms Tymoshenko leads, said she was heading from prison in the eastern city of Kharkiv to the capital Kiev to join protesters there. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso welcomed Ms Tymoshenko's release.
Her release was made possible by a European-brokered peace deal between her President Yanukovych and the opposition on Friday. In April 2013 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that her pre-trial detention had been "arbitrary and unlawful", though the judges did not rule on the legality of her actual conviction for the 2009 gas deal.
They did not explicitly support her claim that her detention was politically motivated, nor did they accept her allegations of physical maltreatment and medical neglect in prison.