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Timoshenko’s participation in trial to ruin results of treatment, doctor says

Given Timoshenko’s condition, the trial should not be taking place now, he added
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

BERLIN, June 23 (Itar-Tass) —— Professor Karl Marx Einhopl, Director of the German Charite clinic, who visited former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko at a Kharkov hospital on Saturday, June 23, objected to her participation in a new trial.

“As doctors we can only advise that Yulia Timoshenko do not attend court hearings because this will ruin the results of the successful treatment conducted over the past several weeks,” Einhopl said in an interview with Berliner Morgenpost-online on Saturday, June 23.

Given Timoshenko’s condition, the trial should not be taking place now, he added.

Einhopl hopes that her condition will stabilise within several weeks.

He arrived in Kharkov on Friday, June 22. He visited Timoshenko at Kharkov’s Ukrzaliznytsia (Railway) Central Clinical Hospital, where she is undergoing medical treatment, on June 23, and left at about 13:15 but did not talk to the journalists who were waiting outside.

Timoshenko was taken to hospital on May 9 after a 20-day hunger strike. She is now taking a course of treatment at Kharkov's railway hospital under the supervision of Charite Clinic doctors.

Timoshenko fell ill on August 18, 2011, two weeks after her arrest. Her lawyers say that she “has been in bed for about four months”.

Physicians believe that Timoshenko has discal hernia. She has been complaining about pains in the back. Her lawyers claim that her condition was worsening despite medical treatment.

Timoshenko mistrusts Ukrainian medics and rejected their help. She insists that she be examined by independent medics.

On October 11, 2011, Timoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison for having acted in excess of her powers which had resulted in damage to national interests.

Timoshenko has also been barred from holding public positions for three years and has to pay a penalty of 189 million U.S. dollars in damages to Naftogaz Ukrainy.

In late December 2011, Timoshenko was transferred from the investigation prison to a correctional facility in the eastern Kharkov region.

Timoshenko is also facing new charges as former head of the Unified Energy Systems of Ukraine.