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Timoshenko cannot face trial on May 21 because of health condition

Ukraine’s former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko cannot take part in a court trial on May 21 because of her health condition

KIEV, May 17 (Itar-Tass) —— Ukraine’s former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko cannot take part in a court trial on May 21 because of her health condition, Galina Siroshtan, the head of the special commission from the Ukrainian ministry of health, said on Thursday.

According to Siroshtan, the chief of the Kachanovskaya penitentiary, where Timoshenko is serving her sentence, requested the ministry of health to assess Timoshenko’s health condition with an eye of her taking part in the May 21 trial. “Members of the commission visited the hospital [where Timoshenko is currently undergoing treatment]. They met with Timoshenko’s attending doctor Irina Fursa, examined medical documentation and the procedures Timoshenko is undergoing,” she said. “Memebrs of the commission think it impossible to interrupt the course of treatment. Yulia Vladimirovna [Timoshenko] cannot attend the session of the Court of Appeals of the Kharkov Region on May 21.”

The course of treatment is showing positive dynamics, she said, and any interruption in procedures may tell adversely on it.

Earlier, Kharkov’s Kiev district court postponed till a trial into Timosenko’s criminal case on charges of office abuse while her being a top manager of the Unified Energy Systems of Ukraine power corporation to May 21 because of Timoshenko’s poor health condition. She is charged with tax evasion to a sum of more than 16 million hryvnas (more than two million U.S. dollars), with embezzling budgetary funds to a sum exceeding 25 million hryvnas (more than three million U.S. dollrs), with a fraud and an attempted misappropriation of 405.5 million U.S. dollars from the state budget.

Timishenko headed the corporation, specializing in imports of natural gas, from 1995 to 1997.

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