Ukraine court holds off ex PM Tymoshenko hearing

A Kharkov district court has postponed the financial fraud hearing allegedly involving Ukraine’s ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko, the former head of state-run United Energy Systems of Ukraine, who once again bowed out of the trial, a local news agency reports.

The court said the hearing couldn’t be held in the absence of the accused, who chose to skip it together with her lawyer and daughter, Yevgenia Tymoshenko.

Judge Konstantin Sadovsky put off the trial until May 21.

The hearing was to look into the second count against Ukraine’s disgraced premier who led the nation’s major energy corporation in the 1990s.

The court has been unable to tackle the case for about a year due to Tymoshenko’s alleged poor health. She has been serving a seven-year term in a Ukrainian jail since 2011 when the court convicted the opposition minister of having overstepped her power in a 2009 gas deal with Russia.