KIEV, September 6 (RAPSI) - The Ukrainian Superior Specialized Civil and Criminal Court declined on Friday to refer the request filed by the lawyers of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to review the sentence in the gas case, to the Supreme Court, according to a statement published on the court's website.

On August 1, the defense team asked the court to review the sentence and release Tymoshenko. Such petition was filed pursuant to the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

On April 30, the ECHR held that Tymoshenko's rights to liberty and security, a speedy review of the lawfulness of detention, and compensation for unlawful detention, had been violated in connection with Tymoshenko's arrest and detention for abuse of power in Ukraine.

Tymoshenko is currently serving a seven-year sentence in a penal colony in Kharkov for abuse of power when she signed a gas deal with Russia in 2009. Since May 2012, she has been undergoing treatment in a hospital in Kharkov.

Tymoshenko has also been charged with financial fraud, which is alleged to have taken place when she was head of United Energy Systems of Ukraine in the 1990s.