ST. PETERSBURG, March 3 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) – The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has demanded from Russian authorities a provision of an emergent help to a seriously ill convict so she would be able to participate in the  hearings concerning her release, lawyer Sergei Petryakov told RAPSI on Thursday.

The woman who is currently serving a term for storing drugs is suffering from cervix cancer, HIV and Hepatitis C.

According to the lawyer, head of a penitentiary clinic for St.Petersburg and Leningrad Region has asked a court to provide the woman with an early release. The motion has been initially dismissed but later it was put on a review. ECHR was asked to intervene because of concerns over probability of the woman’s death before her hearings.

ECHR stated that Russian authorities have to immediately provide woman with an access to all need medicines, including painkillers. If these things are impossible to provide in penitentiary clinics, she must be transferred to a civil one.