Former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko, serving a 4-year sentence in a colony, was taken to the Kiev Oberig clinic for an operation to remove a polyp from the intestines. This is reported on the website of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine.

The operation is scheduled for January 21. The press secretary of the People's Self-Defense party, which is headed by Lutsenko, told Interfax that the ex-minister will be treated in the capital's clinic at his own expense.

The Penitentiary Service notes that visits to convicts or granting meetings with them during treatment are not provided. Both Lutsenko himself and his wife (as well as lawyer) Irina were reportedly informed about this.

The fact that Lutsenko needed surgery became known in December 2012. The medical commission that examined the ex-minister recommended that he be operated on within six months. Irina Lutsenko initially opposed surgical intervention, since, according to her, “the results can be unpredictable,” while “doctors will not watch him for enough time.” At the same time, she admitted that recently Lutsenko was “constantly on painkillers.”

Yuriy Lutsenko is serving time in the Menskaya colony in the Chernihiv region. He was arrested in 2010, after Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions came to power in Ukraine. The former minister was accused of illegally accruing seniority to his driver and spending too much money on celebrating Police Days. For these official violations, Lutsenko was convicted in August 2012 and sentenced to four years in prison with confiscation of property.

Yuriy Lutsenko was hospitalized before surgery