Sergey Vlasenko and Marina Soroka

The former defender of Yulia Timoshenko in the trial, people's deputy of BYuT Sergey Vlasenko (in the centre) and a press-secretary of the leader of Batkivshchyna Party talk to journalists before a public experiment on the speed of reading, in Kiev, on Wednesday, July 20, 2011. This day, it was demonstrated to the journalists how the defenders of Timoshenko study the case materials. Sergey Vlasenko said that the criminal case against his client already has 16 volumes. Vlasenko read aloud one of the petitions, which had been announced at previous court hearings by the defence of Timoshenko. The results of this experiment was that the lawyer could read one page for 3 minutes and 21 sec. "Thus, in order to read at least 4,000 pages to 12,000 minutes, ie 200 hours. If to take into account 8-hour working day, to get acquainted with the case at least 25 working days is needed "- he said. On July 18 Pechersk District court of Kiev took the decision to remove Vlasenko from defence. At the same time, the court allowed to bring to the defence of Tymoshenko's new lawyers - Siryi and Plahotnyuk. Timoshenko and her lawyers demanded that the court give them two months to review the documents of the case on gas agreements in 2009, but the court gave them three days - until July 22. Photo by Aleksandr Prokopenko / POOL / UNIAN