UKRAINIAN OFFICIALS say jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko can receive medical care outside prison, but cannot travel abroad despite pressure from western governments.
German doctors recently examined Ms Tymoshenko and found she needed treatment the prison could not provide. Berlin asked Ukraine to allow her to go to Germany for help with what relatives have described as a slipped disc.
Lawyers for Tymoshenko (51) say she is in jail for political reasons, and they regularly complain about the prison, claiming she is not receiving proper medical care and is kept under constant video observation.
Last week, her legal team said they feared for her safety after being told a convicted murderer might be moved into her cell.
Lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko suggested Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s main opposition leader, would not accept treatment in a local hospital because she “does not trust” the state authorities. “How can you trust a system that for half a year has been saying that she is healthy? What kind of clinic will they choose? It makes no sense,” he said. “It would be best if the German doctors could treat her.”
Tymoshenko was jailed for seven years last October for abusing her power as prime minister, when she signed a 2009 gas deal with Russia that prosecutors say was ruinously expensive.
Prosecutors are looking into whether she committed treason by agreeing to that deal, which investigators claim she signed to pay off a $400 million debt to Russia.
Tymoshenko is also under investigation for allegedly paying for the murder of a business rival and his wife as they disembarked from an aircraft at a Ukrainian airport in 1996.
The EU and US have said the cases are politically motivated.
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