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Ukraine’s Timoshenko serving sentence in comfortable cell – prosecutor

The Pechersky district court sentence to Timoshenko will be challenged by the Court of Appeals on December 13

KIEV, December 7 (Itar-Tass) — Ukraine’s former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko is serving her sentence in a prison cell having a plasma TV and air conditioner, deputy prosecutor general Renat Kuzmin told journalists on Wednesday.

In his words, it was not worth believing media allegations about inhumanly conditions Timoshenko is being kept.

“It is a lie. Yulia Timoshenko is being kept in a 22 square meter cell, which has all the amenities: air conditioner, a shower, hot water, toilet, a plasma TV, a pillow-top mattress, European-quality furniture, a refrigerator,” he said. “Not all Ukraine’s hotels can boast such accommodations.”

Yulia Timoshenko was sentenced by Kiev’s Perchersky district court for a term of seven years for acting in excess of her office competence while signing gas contracts with Russia in January 2009, when she was the country’s prime minister.

Currently, she is staying in a hospital ward of Kiev’s Lukyanovsky detention centre. In late October, her health condition deteriorated dramatically. Reports had it she could not even walk unaided. Medics said she might be having intervertebral rupture, vitamin deficiency, or even cancer. Earlier, Timoshenko’s lawyer Sergei Vlasenko claimed conditions in Timoshenko’s cell are “terrifying, it is very cold there.”

The Pechersky district court sentence to Timoshenko will be challenged by the Court of Appeals on December 13.

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