KHARKOV, May 8 (Itar-Tass) —— Prisoner of the Kachanovo penitentiary Yulia Timoshenko is expected to be convoyed to the Kharkov hospital Ukrzaliznytsi of the Ukrainian Railways. The former prime minister agreed on hospitalization, if a doctor from the German clinic Charite treats her at this hospital, Ukrainian First Deputy Minister of Health Raisa Moiseyenko said.
Professors from the Charite clinic Karl Max Einhaupl and Norbert Haas agreed at a meeting with Timoshenko on May 4 on the conditions of her treatment.
“German doctors together with the doctors of the Ukrainian Penitentiary Service had a meeting (May 4) with Yulia Timoshenko, which agreed preliminarily on her treatment at the central clinical hospital Ukrzaliznytsi starting from May 8, 2012, if a doctor from the Charite clinic arrives upon the recommendations from Germany to begin her treatment course together with Ukrainian doctors,” Moiseyenko said.
On April 20, the former prime minister was already taken to the Kharkov clinic for a more detailed medical examination and a probable treatment course. However, on April 22 she was brought back to the penitentiary over the refusal to pass a medical examination. Timoshenko stated after this that the measures of physical force were used against her during the hospitalization. As a result she got numerous bruises and hematomas. In protest against the actions of the penitentiary service the former premier went on a hunger strike. However, Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka stated that the prosecutor’s office in the Kharkov Region checked Timoshenko’s petition over the use of violence against her, but not finding any evidence for this decided not to open a criminal case. Meanwhile, Ukrainian media made public the photos with the traces of hematomas on the body of the convict that a representative of the ombudsman had made.
The scandal over Timoshenko, who serves a seven-year term in prison for the abuse of power in the signing of the gas contract with Russia in 2009, went beyond Ukraine. Western politicians warn the official Ukrainian authorities about the threat for a political isolation of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Association Agreement with the European Union is put into question, the question is raised to boycott the European Football Championship in Ukraine. The presidents of nine countries refused to participate in a summit of the heads of states of Central Europe, which will be held in Yalta in the middle of May. The authorities of Germany, Switzerland and Russia offered to Timoshenko to take treatment courses in these countries. However, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office stated that “the treatment of convicts, including the former prime minister Yulia Timoshenko, abroad is not envisaged under Ukrainian legislation.”
On May 21, the court in Kharkov scheduled a trial under a new criminal case against Timoshenko. She is accused of financial fraud at the post of the chief executive of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine Corporation from the middle of nineties in the previous century.