You're reading: Hearing of Tymoshenko’s UESU case postponed until July 23

The court hearing of the case against former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko regarding financial activities of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine Corporation has been adjourned until 1000 on July 23.

The court made this decision due to the absence of the defendant for health reasons, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.

As reported, Kyiv Regional Court in Kharkiv during its hearing of the UESU case on June 25 decided to order a medical assessment of Tymoshenko. Kharkiv regional medical review bureau was charged to conducting this assessment.

On July 9, medical experts said they needed additional time to provide a commission their conclusions about the state of health of the former premier due to her refusal to cooperate.

Tymoshenko’s defense counsel Serhiy Vlasenko said that his client had been getting worse.

Meanwhile, German Charite Clinic doctor Lutz Harms, who is currently treating Tymoshenko, said that the state of health of the former premier stabilized.

Kyiv’s Pechersky District Court found Tymoshenko guilty of abuse of office in signing gas supply agreements with Russia in 2009 and sentenced her to seven years in prison on October 11, 2011. She started serving her prison term at a Kharkiv-based penitentiary at the end of December 2011.

Tymoshenko’s defense team repeatedly claimed that she was experiencing serious health problems even when she was held at a Kyiv detention facility and demanded that she be examined by independent medics, as she did not trust Ukrainian doctors. Tymoshenko was transferred on May 9 from the penitentiary to Central Clinical Hospital No. 5 in Kharkiv.

The trial in the criminal case against Tymoshenko on the activities of the UESU under her management is taking place in Kharkiv.

In the UESU case, Tymoshenko is charged with organizing the appropriation of, and the attempted appropriation of public funds through abuse of office and forgery, organizing the UESU’s tax evasion, which led to the actual non-receipt of funds to the national budget, and individual income tax evasion resulting in grave consequences.