At a briefing held Wednesday, Ihor Golovan who leads Petro Poroshenko’s legal team, assured the former Ukrainian president can be immediately available for court proceedings in the criminal case of 2014-2016 state coal contracts.

Prosecutors have secured an active warrant for Poroshenko’s arrest, claimed Golovan, stressing the opposition leader will ‘voluntarily’ show up for a court hearing as soon as he is back to Ukraine on January 17.

The lawyers said they had filed an official request with Kyiv Pecherskiy Court to have such hearing held on the day of his arrival.

Another Poroshenko’s lawyer Ihor Novikov warned against concealments and closed hearings in Petro Poroshenko’s case, which must take place in open court to ensure ‘there is no political repressions of opposition’.

Former Ukainian president Petro Poroshenko is facing charges of treason and sponsoring terrorism in connection to coal supplies that came from occupied Donbas in 2014-2016 at the time of his presidency with state prosecutors claiming such trade saw separatists walking away with about 200 million hryvnas of the public money.

Earlier this month, Kyi Pecherskiy Court also green-lit freeze of  Petro Poroshenko’s assets.