KIEV, May 21 (RAPSI) -Newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda has launched publication of "The Truth from Behind Bars," a series of journal entries penned by former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is currently serving out a seven-year prison sentence.

Tymoshenko was convicted in late 2011 and was serving her sentence in the Kharkov prison until she was transferred to the Kharkov Hospital for medical treatment in May 2012.

The first diary notes dated May 15-16 were published on Monday night in the form of handwritten and typed text in Ukrainian.

Tymoshenko writes that the prison wardens prevented her from attending the hearing of the high-profile case into the murder of businessman and MP Evhen Shcherban in 1996, even though she filed the relevant request several times.

"The authorities feared that my presence in the court when witnesses are called to testify would clearly expose the illegality of charging me with the tragic murder of the deputy," she writes.

Evhen Shcherban, head of the Aton financial corporation and a deputy of the Supreme Rada, was shot dead at Donetsk Airport in November 1996. His wife and an airport employee were also killed.

The Prosecutor General's Office claimed that the murder was ordered by two former Ukrainian prime ministers, Tymoshenko and Pavlo Lazarenko.

According to the investigators, Shcherban stood in the way of making United Energy Systems of Ukraine, which Tymoshenko headed at the time, the monopoly distributor of gas in the Donetsk Region. The investigators claimed that Tymoshenko and Lazarenko paid $2.8 million for Shcherban's murder. If Tymoshenko is found guilty as charged she could be sentenced to life in prison.

Her lawyers have consistently argued that she had absolutely no involvement in the murder.