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Ukrainian State Penitentiary Service confirms Timoshenko’s return to penitentiary

The patient was discharged and taken back to the penitentiary

KIEV, April 22 (Itar-Tass) —— Ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister, Batkivshchyna Party leader Yulia Timoshenko was transferred from the Kharkov Urkzheldorogi hospital to the penitentiary on Sunday noon, Ukrainian State Penitentiary Service Kharkov department head Yevgeny Barash told reporters.

Ukrainian First Deputy Health Minister Raisa Moiseyenko said earlier that the decision to return Timoshenko to the penitentiary was made after she refused to undergo a medical checkup on Sunday morning. “To our profound regret, Yulia Vladimirovna rejected our insisted offers to give her a therapy. We had to discharge her from the hospital. This is not a hotel, after all. The patient was discharged and taken back to the penitentiary,” she said.

The State Penitentiary Service reported that the decision to bring Timoshenko back to the penitentiary was made due to her blunt refusal to undergo any examinations and to start the therapy recommended by Ukrainian and German physicians. The hospital doctors and members of the international medical commission, which had examined Timoshenko earlier, issued an act on Sunday to confirm that the patient had once again refused to start the therapy and to undergo medical checkups.

The State Penitentiary Service said on Friday that Timoshenko had studied the opinion of German physicians and expressed the wish to begin her therapy at the Kharkov clinic. She was taken to the Ukrzheldorogi hospital late on Friday night, but Ukrainian First Deputy Health Minister Raisa Moiseyenko said already on April 21 that Timoshenko would not let doctors to examine her.

Timoshenko is serving a seven-year-term in Kharkov. The court sentenced her on October 11, 2011, for exceeding her authority in the signing of the gas contracts with Russia in 2009. She was also compelled to pay 1.51 billion hryvni (almost $200 million) to Neftegaz Ukrainy.

A new case against her was opened on October 13, 2011, for writing off the debt of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine private corporation to the Russian Defense Ministry worth $405,500,000 to the state budget of Ukraine, while being the corporation president, under conspiracy with other former Prime Minister Pavel Lazarenko.

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