The court hearing of a case against former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko concerning financial abuse within the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) Corporation has been adjourned until March 5, 2013.

"The court has found it impossible to consider the case in the absence of the defendant, Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko, and her defense counsel (the ex-premier's daughter Yevhenia Tymoshenko) and announces a break in the hearing until 1000 on March 5," Judge Kostiantyn Sadovsky announced at a court meeting on Tuesday.

As reported, a preliminary hearing of the case was held on April 19, 2012. Tymoshenko did not attend any of those hearings.

On January 16, 2013, Tymoshenko's defense lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko said doctors from the Berlin clinic Charite, who are coordinating Timoshenko's' rehabilitation program, doubt that her health allows her transportation to the court.

At the same time, Mykhailo Afanasyev, the chief of Central Clinical Hospital No. 5, earlier said the international medical commission has come to the conclusion that there are no medical reasons why Yulia Tymoshenko cannot be transported to court. At the same time, he reiterated that decisions on Tymoshenko's transportation to court are made by the judge, not doctors.

In December 2012, Vlasenko said the penitentiary service had been ordered to take Tymoshenko to the January 18 hearing at any costs. The penitentiary service denied that information.

On January 8, 2013, Vlasenko read out Tymoshenko's open letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, in which the ex-premier declared a campaign of civil disobedience.

The former prime minister said that she refused to recognize the prosecutors and investigators involved in her case and was not going to talk to them anymore. Tymoshenko also said she would not come to court voluntarily, and should they try to bring her to court by force, she would offer every resistance she could. The ex-premier also refused to go back to her hospital ward unless video surveillance and the guard are removed.

Tymoshenko is charged under five counts in the UESU case.

On October 11, 2011, Kyiv Pechersky District Court sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years in prison for exceeding her powers when signing gas supply contracts with Russia in 2009. She has served her sentence in the Kharkiv Kachanivska Penal Colony since late December 2011.

Tymoshenko is currently undergoing treatment at Kharkiv-based Central Clinical Hospital No. 5.