5 July 2012
Rapporteur of the Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and head of the parliamentary delegation of the Netherlands to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Coskun Coruz and secretary of the delegation of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Arjen Westerhoff visited former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko in Kharkiv hospital on Wednesday.
They talked with Tymoshenko for two hours, the press service of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine reported. In addition, the OSCE representatives talked for about an hour with the management of the Central Clinical Hospital No. 5, where the ex-premier undergoes treatment.
Coruz thanked for the opportunity to visit the hospital and communicate directly with Tymoshenko, the penitentiary service said.
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 was transferred on May 9 from the penitentiary to Central Clinical Hospital No. 5 in Kharkiv.
Tymoshenko has already been visited in hospital by Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Tefft, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Melia, PACE co-rapporteurs on Ukraine Mailis Reps, Marietta de Pourbaix-Lundin, Vice President of the European Parliament Jacek Protasiewicz, MEPs Rebecca Harms and Werner Schulz, and others.
