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Timoshenko refuses to attend court for health reasons

The former prime minister is accused of misappropriating public funds in 1990s during her time as head of the biggest at the time United Energy Systems of Ukraine Corporation

KIEV, January 18 (Itar-Tass) — Ukrainian opposition leader, ex-prime minister Yulia Timoshenko, who undergoes medical treatment in the clinic of Ukrainian Railways in Kharkov, refused on Friday to attend a court hearings in the case of misappropriations in the United Energy Systems of Ukraine Corporation.

“We have her application saying she refuses to go to court for health reasons,” the head of the Kachanov penal colony, Igor Kolpashchikov, said to reporters. Preliminary hearings in the case were held on April 19, 2012. Timoshenko has not attended any of the court sessions. The former prime minister is accused of misappropriating public funds in the second half of the 1990s during her time as head of the biggest at the time United Energy Systems of Ukraine Corporation.

At the present time the former Ukrainian prime minister serves her 7-year term in the Kachanov penal colony in Kharkov for an abuse of power in the signing of a gas agreement with Russia in 2009, but for already more than eight months she has been undergoing medical treatment in the clinic of Ukrainian Railways in Kharkov.

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