KIEV, December 28 - RAPSI. Defense attorneys for former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are likely to file a cassation appeal against the trial court's decision to sentence her to seven years in prison, attorney Valentina Telichenko, representing Tymoshenko in the European Court of Human Rights, told journalists on Wednesday.

A Kiev district court sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years in prison for abuse of power in signing gas contracts between Ukraine's Naftogaz and Russia's Gazprom in 2009.

The Kiev Appellate Court upheld the sentence on December 23.

Earlier one of Tymoshenko's attorneys, parliamentarian Serhiy Vlasenko, said that the European Court may consider her appeal without the cassation stage as a special case.
Tymoshenko has three months to lodge a cassation appeal.