Former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, who has been released from prison by the president's pardon, has been successfully operated on in the Oberig Clinic, the People's Self-Defense party told Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday referring to the ex-minister's wife.

"Lutsenko has been successfully operated on, and has already come out from under the anesthetic and can communicate," People's Self-Defense reported."

The party earlier reported that Lutsenko was to undergo surgery at the Kyiv-based Oberig Clinic on April 16.

People's Self-Defense Party's spokeswoman Larysa Sarhan said that Lutsenko had been hospitalized since the beginning of last week.

At the same time, Sarhan did not specify what kind of surgery Lutsenko would undergo.

As reported, on April 5, 2013 Verkhovna Rada's Commissioner for Human Rights Valeria Lutkovska asked Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to pardon Lutsenko because of his state of health and the fact that the ex-minister had served more than half of his prison term.

On April 7, Yanukovych signed a decree pardoning several convicts, including Lutsenko. The ex-minister was released on the same day.

On April 9, the ex-minister was examined at the Oberig Clinic and the doctors confirmed the necessity to operate on him again. The surgery was earlier scheduled for late February 2013.