KIEV, May 22 (Itar-Tass) —— There are video cameras in ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko’s room at the Kharkov Ukrzheldorogi hospital, which is demanded by national and international laws, the Ukrainian State Penitentiary Service said on Tuesday.
However, Timoshenko’s checkups are not videotaped, it said.
“The Ukrainian State Penitentiary Service reports once again that there are no video cameras [both visible and covert] in the rooms where Timoshenko is receiving therapy. So the examinations are not videotaped,” it said.
Female penitentiary personnel guard Timoshenko at the hospital, the service stressed.
Timoshenko’s lawyer, parliament deputy Sergei Vlasenko said on Monday that Timoshenko was being guarded by male officers. He also claimed she was put under round-the-clock video monitoring.
Timoshenko was admitted to the hospital on May 9. A doctor from the Charite Clinic Berlin is supervising the therapy.
Acting head of the Kharkov regional department of the Ukrainian State Penitentiary Service Yevgeny Barash said that three rooms had been assigned for Timoshenko on the 9th floor of the hospital: a hospital room with a bed, a wardrobe, a wall lamp, a wash basin, a toilet, an electric kettle, a water cooler and a plasma TV. There is also a dining room and a room for meeting with lawyers. The same floor has a plasmapheresis room and a remedial gymnastic room.
Back on October 11, 2011, a court sentenced her to seven years for exceeding the authority in the signing of the gas contracts with Russia in 2009.
The new case relates to Timoshchenko’s activity at the Unified Energy Systems of Ukraine – natural gas importer – from 1995-1997. She is suspected of concealing hard currency revenues, evading more than 16 million hryvni (over $2 million) worth of taxes, embezzling more than 25 million hryvni with the unlawful VAT refunds and attempting embezzlement of $405.5 million hryvni of public funds.