Ukraine’s Tymoshenko alleges being exposed to unsafe radiation
By
our dpa-correspondent and Europe Online
Kyiv (dpa) – Detained Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko
claimed she was being exposed to unsafe levels of radiation in her
hospital ward, as prison officials confiscated Geiger counters from
her cell, according to reports Friday.
A statement published on her personal website said: “The search
was carried out in the best traditions of the (Soviet purge) of 1937
… I am sure that the search was conducted for one reason – to take
away the Geiger counters.”
Tymoshenko‘s lawyer, Sergei Vlasenko, told Kommersant-Ukraina
newspaper: “Based on the readings we have seen, the levels of
radiation in the place of her confinement is excessive. It is our
position that this raised level of radiation is pressure being
brought on her health (by prison authorities).”
Ukraine‘s state penitentiary service said a search Thursday of
Tymoshenko‘s cell in a Kharkiv women‘s prison found two “technical
devices” concealed inside a hardback book copy of the Ukrainian
national criminal code.
Authorities confiscated the devices, and unidentified medicines
also hidden in her cell.
Myhailo Afansiyev, director of the prison hospital where
Tymoshenko is undergoing treatment for back and other health
problems, has called her allegations “absurd.”
A court in Kyiv in October found Tymoshenko guilty and sentenced
her to seven years in prison on abuse of office charges connected to
a natural gas import deal signed with Russia in 2009, when she was
prime minister.
A second trial, on charges that she committed massive tax fraud
while heading a natural gas import company in the mid 1990s, is in
progress, but has been repeatedly delayed because Tymoshenko has been
too ill to appear in court.
Tymoshenko has denied all wrongdoing and says she is the victim of
a vendetta pursued by her political enemy, Viktor Yanukovych.
Yanukovych has said he wishes Tymoshenko well, but insists she
must serve jail time as she was found guilty in a fair trial.
dpa sbk npr
Author: Stefan Korshak
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