The decision on the transfer of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to a penal institution will be taken by the State Prison Service of Ukraine, the press service of the Ukrainian Justice Ministry reported on Thursday.
"The decision on Tymoshenko’s transfer to a penal institution will be taken by the Prison Service in accordance with a sentence that has already come into force," reads the statement.
Earlier, Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych said that he could not forecast when Tymoshenko would be transferred from jail to a penal institution to serve her sentence.
"When the verdict comes into force, all the documents need to be drawn up, and when the courts have no more questions, there is every reason to send a person to a penal institution. As regards Tymoshenko, there are still a number of criminal cases, and the pre-trial investigation is still underway. Therefore, I cannot predict how this matter will be settled," the minister said.
The Prison Service is currently subordinate to the Justice Ministry.
As reported, on Dec. 23, Kyiv’s Court of Appeals upheld the ruling of Kyiv’s Pechersky District Court sentencing Tymoshenko to seven years in prison for abuse of office in signing gas contracts with Russia in 2009. Tymoshenko was also barred from taking government posts for three years and obliged to pay more than Hr 1.5 billion to Naftogaz Ukrainy in compensation for the losses it sustained through the gas contract.
Apart from this case, the Prosecutor General’s Office opened three other criminal cases against Tymoshenko: one involving the misuse of funds that Ukraine received under the Kyoto Protocol, and one involving the purchase of ambulances for rural hospitals, and the case on the activities of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) corporation.
Tymoshenko has been in jail since Aug. 5, 2011.
