MOSCOW, December 12 (RAPSI) - Two guards at a penal colony where former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko served a seven-year term face trial for alleged abuse, RIA Novosti reported on Friday, citing the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine.

In April 2012, Tymoshenko claimed that while being transferred from the colony to the hospital she had been beaten by guards who twisted her arms and legs and hit her in the stomach.

An indictment specifying the charges against the guards has been already submitted to a court, according to Ukrainian prosecutors. Both guards are accused of  abuse of authority.

“A pre-trial investigation found that on April 20, 2012, the suspects, acting without evidence of the need for urgent hospitalization and without indication for a convict to undergo compulsory treatment as stipulated by Article 117 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code, used undue force against the claimant, Yulia Tymoshenko. A medical examination showed that the suspects’ alleged actions caused minor bodily harm to Tymoshenko,” the agency quoted the statement of the Prosecutor General’s Office.

In October 2011, Tymoshenko was sentenced for abuse of power based on a 2009 gas contract that she signed with Russia. In late March 2012, a second case bringing further charges against Tymoshenko was filed with a court in Kharkiv. The case dealt with her activity at United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU).

The Ukrainian parliament decriminalized last February the articles of the country’s criminal code under which Tymoshenko was convicted and sentenced. She was released on February 22.