Legal woes mount for Ukraine's jailed Tymoshenko

Ukraine's jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko was on Tuesday facing several new criminal probes in a case dating back to the 1990s amid growing concerns for her health. The lawyer of the opposition leader said she had been handed formal notice by the tax authorities of the reopening of four criminal probes in her work as head of energy firm United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) in the 1990s. The case is separate to the charges of abuse of power on which Tymoshenko was jailed for seven years last month. In that case she was convicted of sustaining massive losses to the budget in a 2009 gas deal with Russia. Lawyer Sergiy Vlasenko told AFP that two of the probes had first been opened in 2001 and two others in 2003 but all had been closed by prosecutors and the courts in 2004-2005. All concern alleged tax evasion by the company. He described the new investigations as "absurd" and said they were aimed at "eliminating Tymoshenko from politics" ahead of legislative elections in 2012. "We are expecting that they will continue to pile up judicial enquiries against her which have no connection with reality," he added. The opposition leader has insisted that the seven year sentence was ordered by her arch-foe President Viktor Yanukovych who defeated her and other figureheads of the 2004 Orange Revolution in 2010 presidential elections. The verdict prompted charges of a political persecution from the West and has substantially damaged Ukraine's chances of joining the European Union. Ukrainian prosecutors declined to comment on the new probes but noted that the most recent public commentary on the issue was made by deputy prosecutor general Renat Kuzmin. Kuzmin said on Ukrainian television late last month that Tymoshenko was targeted by three criminal probes linked to her work at UESU -- one into alleged tax evasion and two more into alleged embezzlement. He also said that prosecutors are reviewing information that Tymoshenko was allegedly involved in the notorious contract killing of Ukrainian MP Yevgen Shcherban in 1996.Tymoshenko has now spent three months in prison after her initial arrest and Vlasenko announced late Monday that her health had taken a "sharp" turn for the worse. Ukraine's prison service confirmed in a statement that she was partially incapacitated after injuring her back during a prison yard walk but said the pain had been provoked by her own "imprudence".