PACE Co-Rapporteurs not allowed to visit Yulia Tymoshenko
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s Co-Rapporteurs on Ukraine - Marietta de Pourbaix-Lundin and Mailis Reps – announced at a press conference on Friday that they had been refused permission to visit former Prime Minister and leader of the Batkivshchyna party, recently sentenced to 7 years imprisonment.
Judge Kireyev rejected the request, claiming “insufficient grounds”. The Co-Rapporteurs have said that they will try again to visit Ms Tymoshenko during future visits, and expressed the hope that she would be released by then. They said that they had spoken with her lawyers, as well as those defending former Minister of Internal Affairs, Yury Lutsenko, who has been in detention since December 2010, and the former Acting Defence Minister Valery Ivashchenko, in detention since August 2010.
The Co-Rapporteurs expressed concern that proper medical care was not being provided, as well as over infringements of procedural legislation in their trials.
Ukrainsky Tyzhden reports that this is not the first time Council of Europe representatives have had such applications turned down. The Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner, Thomas Hammerberg was also not allowed to visit imprisoned former government officials.
From reports at Ukrainsky Tyzhden and Yulia Tymoshenko’s website