You're reading: Lutsenko’s wife: Lutsenko’s phone conversations interrupted in prison, newspapers not passed

Iryna Lutsenko, a defense lawyer and the wife of Ukraine's imprisoned former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, has said her husband's right to privacy is being violated due to the interruption of his phone conversations and the failure to pass newspapers and magazines to him.

Lutsenko’s wife told reporters in Kyiv on Thursday that none of the rules of stay in the Mena penal colony say that Lutsenko has no right to talk about social and political life and his associates. However, she said, “phone conversations were interrupted for two days when I started saying ‘BYT,’ ‘Turchynov,’ and ‘Yatseniuk.'”

She said that representatives of the office of the State Penitentiary Service in Chernihiv region had visited the ex-minister in prison three times and that a representative of the penitentiary service had warned Lutsenko that all of his phone conversations were being tapped.

“A representative of the penitentiary service warned Lutsenko: ‘I’m asking you not to talk about elections, politics, and not to talk to [OU-PSD MPs] Stets and Doniy,” she said.

She also said she regularly brings newspapers and magazines to her husband, but during her last visit a glass window was not opened to pass this correspondence, explaining that a relief worker allegedly took the keys to this window.

The ex-minister’s wife said that her husband was embarrassed in this connection and is not planning to go back on his word.

“I and [Lutsenko’s lawyer Ihor] Fomin are preparing a respective note on how Lutsenko should behave in certain circumstances. Fomin is preparing a request for all the moments that occurred over this period,” Lutsenko said.

She said that the next week the defense team would actively demand that Lutsenko’s right to privacy in Mena prison not be violated, and that he be able to talk by phone, discussing various topics, including socio-political ones, and have access to correspondence and the ability to transfer his documents.