‘Ukraine has left Mother in constant terror’
THE DAUGHTER of the former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko fears her mother will be poisoned in prison as she awaits trial accused of killing a businessman.
British politicians last month boycotted Euro 2012 football matches held in the country in protest at her plight.
Speaking to the Sunday Express, daughter Eugenia said her mother was getting increasingly weak, having been forced to have medical treatment in the Ukraine for a back condition.
“The European Court ordered that my mother be given independent medical treatment, but there is just one German doctor, and everyone else is from Ukraine.
“While they are, I am sure, trying their best, they are totally under the control of President Yanukovych, who keeps putting back my mother’s trial.
“The situation is very bad. Every meal that she gets, while the food is ostensibly good, it could be poisoned by one of the people in there under the orders of the regime. My mother knows she has to eat, but it is very difficult for her. We try to take food into her from home, but sometimes it is very difficult and we are not allowed to give it to her. She is living in a state of constant fear which is obviously very bad for her nervous health.”
Tymoshenko, prime minister until 2010, has described her conviction as part of a campaign by Viktor Yanukovych to destroy the opposition ahead of a parliamentary election in October.
Eugenia said: “The Ukrainian doctors are doing what they are told by the government and are writing that my mother is healthy. I don’t know how they can write that as she is unable to walk without using a walking aid, she is so weak.
“Her trial has already been postponed twice by the regime even though my mother wrote signed declarations that she was happy for it to go ahead in her absence as she wasn’t well enough. They just ignored it in spite of her multiple statements.
“They just want to delay the trial until after the elections in October.
“They don’t want my mother to be free and able to be cam-
PLEA: Eugenia talks to reporters in front of a poster of Yulia paigning or having any say in the proceedings.
“She is very frightened and is constantly in a state of nervous exhaustion.
“She is scared to sleep, it is awful. Something needs to be done to help her, and to help her fast if she is to survive this ordeal.”
Tymoshenko is already serving a seven-year sentence for abuse of power, which she is appealing against.
Prosecutors have indicated they wish to charge her with the killing 16 years ago of businessman and MP Yevhen Shcherban, gunned down with his wife and aide in a contract-style killing. Tymoshenko denies the new allegation, saying it has been made because it increasingly looks like the first charge will be dismissed if it goes to the European Court of Human Rights.
Eugenia said her mother was “entirely innocent of this nonsense” and the authorities “have to find something else to keep her”. She added: “They are saying she told many people she was a murderer and for that we are taking them to court outside the Ukraine.
“They are trying to break her but we just have to hope that the European Court will intervene and her trial will be heard fairly.
“I am also convinced that if my mother were allowed to be treated outside Ukraine, her health would improve rapidly as doctors would be free to help her to the best of their ability. The Ukrainian ones are so scared to upset the powers that be.
“Her back pain is much worse, with pressing on the nerves so it hurts when she moves. She hasn’t had fresh air in eight months as she cannot walk.
“One of the guards refused to beat her but in the end they had to do what they were told. My mother is in great danger.
“One piece of good news last week came when my mother’s former interior minister Yuri Lutsenko received a ruling from the European Court that he had been arrested illegally and that the charges against him are politically motivated.”