KHARKIV, Ukraine – Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has returned to prison after a brief hospital stay, Interfax-Ukraine reported today, citing a statement made by penitentiary sources.
According to Interfax-Ukraine, she was taken back to prison by the Berkut special forces police. After she left, so did the heavy police contingent guarding the hospital. A hospital security guard also confirmed that she left and was sent back to the women’s prison in Kharkiv. At the prison, there was no sign of her return behind the high metal gates topped with razor wire – no pictures of her on the walls and no demonstrations on Sunday night.
Earlier on Sunday, the Kyiv Post walked into the main entrance and started walking up the stairs looking for an administrator before a uniformed hospital security guard stopped to ask where the reporter was going. The guard took a business card and said he’d pass on the message to Tymoshenko if he could, but wouldn’t say where her room was located inside the compound. An officer told one of the people outside that Tymoshenko is personally guarded by Security Service of Ukraine agents, with a security detail supplemented by Interior Ministry police and special Berkut units.
There were no protesters or demonstrations at the hospital as people walked about leisurely as others sat on benches.
Since her arrest in August and her seven-year prison sentence in October, Tymoshenko — twice the nation’s prime minister — has been suffering from severe back and spinal problems that her supporters say prevent her from doing much more than lying in bed. She accuses President Viktor Yanukovych of trying to kill her, charges the president vehemently denies. She has also refused to be treated by state-appointed doctors in Ukraine, citing lack in trust of Ukrainian doctors and the state penitentiary medical service. Her supporters are trying to get her treated abroad and she has been visited this year by Canadian and German doctors who say she is suffering from serious health problems and is not being adequately treated.
Authorities say Tymoshenko has been offered adequate treatment and have pointed to her reluctance and refusal for state medical care as a show for media attention.
Tymoshenko was transferred to the hospital on Saturday from a prison in Kharkiv where she is serving a seven-year prison sentence on an abuse-of-office conviction widely seen as politically motivated.
The address of the hospital, where patients are taken after experiencing medical emergencies, is 5 Balakereva Pereyulok. It is known by the acronym TsKB, or Central Clinic Hospital of Ukrzaliznytsia — as it used to be a place where state railway employees were treated.
On Saturday, several dozen police officers were deployed to the hospital after Tymoshenko’s late-night transfer from her Kharkiv prison cell in another part of the city late Friday, Interfax-Ukraine reported.
