Daughter of Ukrainian leader Yulia Tymoshenko claims mother being 'brutally beaten'

Kiev, May 3 (ANI): Eugenia Tymoshenko, the daughter of jailed Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, has said that her mother is being "brutally beaten" in prison.

Eugenia claimed that her mother was badly beaten up on the evening of April 20, when prison guards arrived in her cell to transfer her to hospital.

"They started moving towards her and surrounded her bed. My mother felt these were the last minutes of her life. They grabbed a thick woollen blanket from her bed, pulling her off the bed. She managed to stick her hand out and resisted, protecting her life. The vice-head then punched her in the stomach," The Guardian quoted Eugenia, as saying.

"She couldn't breathe after the punch. She started screaming, when they were bringing her out of the building. She passed out in the ambulance. She recovered conscious in hospital. She refused everything. She took only painkillers," she added.

She said her mother was now back in prison and "very physically weak", who was now reportedly on the 13th day of a hunger strike, her daughter revealed.

Eugenia along with the supporters of Tymoshenko, who is currenly serving a sever year sentence since October last year for alleged 'abuse of office', claimed that it was all done by her rival President Viktor Yanukovych to gain revenge on her.

"Yanukovych is probably persecuting my mother out of revenge," she said.

Interestingly, Ukrainian prosecutors claimed that Tymoshenko's injuries were self-inflicted.

However, Eugenia claimed her mother's cell was under 24-hour video surveillance, and said the authorities could release tapes proving what had happened. (ANI)