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Timoshenko refuses to attend court sessions on abuses at energy corporation

The previous session of the court took place October 15 but Timoshenko did not attend it either.

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

KIEV, November 9 (Itar-Tass) — Ukraine’s former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko who is serving a 7-year jail term for occupational abuses committed in the process of signing of natural gas contracts with Russia in 2009 has refused to take part in court hearings on a case of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine corporation that has been scheduled for November 13, the country’s State Penitentiary Service said Friday.

Timoshenko said in a statement to the Kachanovsky general penal colony where is formally serving the term that she is “staying in a hospital ward in the condition of political protest.”

October 29, Timoshenko went on a hunger strike right in the ward of the Kharkov railway hospital where she is taking a course of treatment. She is striking in protest of the alleged vote rigging at the October 28 parliamentary election.

A district court in Kharkov has scheduled the hearings for November 13. Timoshenko is featured in a criminal case over embezzlement at the United Energy Systems of Ukraine, which she presided over from 1995 through to 1997.

The previous session of the court took place October 15 but Timoshenko did not attend it either.

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