KIEV, November 9 (Itar-Tass) —— The condition of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko has deteriorated an d she can’t move without help, her lawyer Sergei Vlasenko said.
“She came to the meeting with me today helped by investigation prison employees,” he said on Wednesday, November 9.
Vlasenko blamed the deterioration of Timoshenko’s health on the conditions of her incarceration.
He named specifically vertebrae problems. “She stays in bed practically all the time,” he added.
The medics who examined Timoshenko advised her to stay in bed and keep away from premises where the temperature of the air is below 14-15 degrees Celsius.
Vlasenko said it was quite cool at the investigation prison. “I got quite cold myself while waiting for Timoshenko at the meeting room,” the lawyer said.
He stressed that despite Timoshenko’s health problems, tax police investigators will try to carry out investigative actions on November 10. “Questioning at a time when a person cannot move on his own is tantamount to torture,” Vlasenko said.
The medics who examined Timoshenko found no health problems that could prevent the investigation of her case.
“Timoshenko’s health is being monitored by medical personnel of the Kiev investigation prison,” the press service of the State Penitentiary Service said earlier in the day.
Vlasenko said on November 7 that her condition had “deteriorated sharply”.
He tried to meet with Timoshenko, but the head of the investigation prison, where she is being held, said that “Yulia Vladimirovna cannot meet me because of a sharp pain in the vertebrae”.
“As a lawyer, I have been denied the opportunity to visit Timoshenko for the next several days,” Vlasenko said.
He noted that the investigation prison management had rejected his suggestion to organise his meetings with Timoshenko in the cell.
The penitentiary service said, “The ex-premier inadvertently provoked a deterioration of the pain syndrome in the lumbar part of spinal cord during a morning walk on November 5.”
Vlasenko said that the materials of the so-called “gas case” opened against Timoshenko should be transferred from Kiev’s Pechersky Court to the Court of Appeals before November 14.
He also said that the “tax service has resumed the investigation of four criminal cases concerning the operation of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine, which involve the former prime minister”.
Resolutions on the resumption of the investigation were delivered to Timoshenko on November 4.
On October 11, Timoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison for having acted in excess of her powers which had resulted in damage to the national interests of the country.
Timoshenko has also been barred from holding public positions for three years and has to pay a penalty of 189 million U.S. dollars in damages to Naftogaz Ukrainy.