Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, already jailed for seven years, has again demanded that the courts close a criminal case on the Unified Energy Systems of Ukraine company being heard in Kharkiv.

"The illegal resumption of this case, contrary to a Supreme Court ruling, is a flagrant violation of Point 4 of Protocol 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and Article 61 of the Constitution on the constancy of court rulings. This case must be immediately closed and scrapped. Therefore, I demand that the court hear my request in absentia and close this totally falsified case," Tymoshenko said in a statement posted on her website on Friday.

Tymoshenko wrote that the Supreme Court, the Judiciary Chamber for Criminal Cases and the Military Judiciary Board on November 11, 2005 said in clear terms that "these criminal cases against Tymoshenko have been closed with ample criminal-procedural reason in the absence of the element of a crime."

"I'm at Ukrzaliznytsia's hospital No. 5, given my health problems. Unlike the Scherban murder case, I do not see any reasons now for damaging my health any further during the transportation and attendance of the hearings of the UESU case which the Supreme Court solved in my favor. Thus, I'd like to ask the court to abide to Article 249 of the Criminal Procedure Code in the wording of the year 1960," Tymoshenko said.

A court in Kharkiv is to continue hearing the UESU case on Friday.

An opposition rally, "Rise Ukraine!" was held in Kharkiv on Friday.