Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has gone on hunger strike in prison after guards dragged her off her bed and punched her in the stomach, her lawyer said on Tuesday.
Prison authorities deny the accusations.
Tymoshenko, the main opponent of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, is in jail convicted of abuse of office. She said the beating took place while she was being moved to a state-run hospital on Friday last week after complaining of back pain.
Photo: AFP
“They approached my bed, put a sheet over me and started dragging me off the bed, using brute physical force. In pain and desperate, I started defending myself the way I could and received a strong fist punch in the abdomen,” Tymoshenko said in a statement read to reporters by her lawyer, Serhiy Vlasenko.
The 51-year-old was convicted last year in a case that strained relations between Ukraine and the West, which saw it as politically motivated.
In the statement, she said she had been attacked by three prison guards.
“They twisted my arms, lifted me up and dragged me outside wrapped in a blanket. I thought those were the last minutes of my life,” Tymoshenko said.
The prison administration denied using any force against Tymoshenko, the Interfax news agency reported.
A state prosecutor denied allegations of beating, but said Tymoshenko’s move last week had indeed been forced.
“She packed up and got dressed, and then lay on her bed and said ‘I am not going anywhere,’” Interfax quoted regional prosecutor Henady Tyurin as saying. “The law ... allows the prison service to use physical force: [guards] lifted her, carried her to the car and took her to the hospital.”
Tymoshenko returned to her prison in the city of Kharkiv on Sunday after she refused to be examined.
The opposition leader has been on a hunger strike since Friday last week to draw attention to the situation in Ukraine, Vlasenko said.
Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison in October last year after being convicted of abusing her power as prime minister in brokering a 2009 gas deal with Russia.
Yanukovych’s government says the deal ran against the national interest and it has saddled Ukraine with an exorbitant price for vital energy supplies.
Russia expressed concern over “media reports about the worsening health” of Tymoshenko.
A Russian Foreign Ministry statement urged Ukrainian authorities to ensure her legal rights are protected and to display “humanity.”
The EU has warned Ukraine that its members would not ratify key bilateral agreements on political association and free trade while Tymoshenko remains in prison.
Tymoshenko was one of the leaders of the 2004 Orange Revolution which derailed Yanukovich’s first bid for the presidency.
She went on to serve twice as prime minister and lost the 2010 presidential vote to Yanukovych in a close race.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CANCER: Jose Mujica earned the moniker ‘world’s poorest president’ for giving away much of his salary and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and dog Tributes poured in on Tuesday from across Latin America following the death of former Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter revered by the left for his humility and progressive politics. He was 89. Mujica, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment. “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote on X. “Pepe, eternal,” a cyclist shouted out minutes later,
MIGRATION: The Supreme Court justices said they were not deciding whether Trump could legally use the Alien Enemies Act to deport undocumented migrants US President Donald Trump on Friday lashed out at the US Supreme Court after it blocked his bid to resume deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members, saying the justices are “not allowing me to do what I was elected to do.” Trump’s berating of the high court, in a post on Truth Social, came after it dealt another setback to his attempt to swiftly expel alleged Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members using an obscure wartime law, the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA). Trump has been at loggerheads with the judiciary ever since he returned to the White House, venting
RSS