Ukrainian court rules to arrest lawmaker Savchenko for 2 months

KIEV, March 23 (Xinhua) -- A court in the Ukrainian capital said on Friday it has accepted a request from state prosecutors to arrest lawmaker Nadiya Savchenko for two months as a pre-trial restriction measure.

Savchenko, who is accused of plotting a coup, will be arrested without a bail option, the Shevchenko district court said in a statement.

Lawyers of Savchenko told local reporters that they will appeal the court's ruling next week.

Savchenko was detained by the Security Service of Ukraine on Thursday after Ukrainian parliament has deprived her of legal immunity and allowed her arrest at the request of the country's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko.

Lutsenko has accused Savchenko of planning a "large-scale terrorist attack" in central Kiev aimed at a "forcible overthrow of the constitutional system and the seizure of state power in Ukraine."

Savchenko called the accusations against her "politically motivated" and launched a hunger strike against her detention.

Savchenko, also a military pilot, has formerly participated in the conflict in eastern Ukraine along with government forces.

She spent almost two years in prison in Russia after a court there found her guilty of complicity in killing two Russian journalists in 2014 during the conflict.

The pilot has denied her role in the murder and said she had been kidnapped in Ukraine and then handed over to Russian authorities.

Savchenko was elected as a member of the Ukrainian parliament while serving her jail term in Russia. She returned to Ukraine in May 2016 after Russian President Vladimir Putin pardoned her. Enditem