KHARKIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian court on Tuesday adjourned the tax evasion and embezzlement trial of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko until Oct. 15, citing her inability to attend the trial due to poor health.
"The court has ruled that it is impossible to hear the case in the absence of defendant Tymoshenko and her attorney Yevgenia [Tymoshenko's daughter]," Judge Kostyantyn Sadovsky told the courtroom.
Tymoshenko, the main political adversary of President Viktor Yanukovych, has dismissed all charges against her as politically motivated.
The 51-year-old opposition leader is serving a seven-year sentence on a separate abuse-of-office charge linked to a gas deal she brokered with Russia in 2009 as prime minister.
A "guilty" verdict in the tax evasion case would keep Tymoshenko behind bars even if the European Court of Human Rights eventually overturns her first conviction.
Tymoshenko led the 2004 Orange Revolution protests that doomed Yanukovych's first bid for the presidency, and has since served twice as prime minister.
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