Jailed Ukrainian ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has refused to attend a preliminary court hearing into her other criminal case, citing poor health, the country’s penitentiary authority has said.
Tymoshenko, a leading Ukrainian opposition figurehead, has been serving a seven-year term in a penal colony in eastern Ukraine for abusing her powers by pushing though a gas deal with Russia in 2009. Her trial was condemned by both the European Union and Russia as politically motivated, an allegation the Ukrainian authorities strongly dismiss.
She has also been charged with attempting to embezzle $405 million of government funds during the 1990s, when she headed Ukraine’s state corporation United Energy Systems. Tymoshenko maintains her innocence in both cases.
The preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for Thursday.
“I am asking for the preliminary hearing… to be held in my absence because of my poor health condition,” Tymoshenko wrote in a request to the court, which was quoted by the penitentiary service.
Tymoshenko has complained of health problems since her arrest in August 2011. Her supporters say she is no longer able to walk due to back problems
She has repeatedly refused treatment in the prison where she is serving her sentence. A team of Ukrainian and German doctors examined her in mid-February, after which one of the German doctors, Karl Marx Einhopl, declared her unable to take part in court hearings due to serious health problems. An official report on the doctors’ findings is yet to be published.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka has already said that Tymoshenko will be allowed to undergo medical treatment at a clinic in the city of Kharkov where her prison is located.
