Arsenii Yatseniuk is not allowed to Yulia Tymoshenko’s cell, he finds some prison bread instead
On September 13, Arsenii Yatseniuk, leader of the Front for Change, was allowed to visit the Lukianivska Pre-trial Detention Facility along with BYuT MPs Serhii Sobolev, Ostap Semerak, and NU-NS MP Ruslan Kniazevych. They spent almost two hours there.
Previously, the Front’s press service reported that Yatseniuk requested a visit with Yulia Tymoshenko at the detention facility but was refused. He then applied Section 1, Article 24 of the Penal Code of Ukraine, whereby members of the Ukrainian parliament can visit any penal institutions to check their performance without having to ask for formal permission. However, the visiting Ukrainian MPs were denied an audience with Yulia Tymoshenko. They were told they had to have a court warrant to do so. The MPs asked to be shown an empty prison cell and were told there was none. Yatseniuk got hold of a chunk of bread, part of the prison ration.
“Can you imagine? A total of seven hryvnias is spent on each inmate a day,” he told journalists and showed them the chunk of bread, adding, “This is the kind of bread our prisoners are fed. It is made at the prison bakery. In other words, token money is spent on people who aren’t even prisoners but in pre-trial custody that can last years.”
The visiting MPs agreed that the inmates are in an abominable condition, being denied professional medical help, with five to six inmates in a cell meant for two persons, with some of the inmates suffering from tuberculosis.
MP Serhii Sobolev says a bill must be drawn up and passed by parliament, whereby every person in pre-trial custody can have medical attention, by a physician he trusts, “so there is no threat to the inmate’s life.”
“We will work hard and quick on amendments to the Procedural Code so as to delete a number of crimes that will allow to release at least one-third of the inmates held in pre-trial custody,” he told The Day.
Interestingly, there is a building under construction at Lukianivka, meant for female detainees and being done by a Swiss company. Originally, both sides agreed to do is fifty by fifty, but then the Ukrainian side turned up empty-handed and the Swiss side agreed to a 70/30 percent scenario, although the MPs say this won’t help the situation.
“All of Lukianivska detention facilities ought to be torn down and rebuilt in accordance with the European standard,” Ostap Semerak told The Day.
