STRASBOURG, Oct 25, 2007 (AFP) - A European Court issued a judgement against Ukraine Thursday for violating the human rights of a prisoner infected with the AIDS virus by not providing him with adequate care and humane living conditions.
The European Court of Human Rights voted unanimously that Ukranian authorities failed in their obligations by refusing Oleg Nikolayevich Yakovenko adequate health care, even after they knew he carried the HIV virus and had tuberculosis.
Yakovenko, 32, who had contracted tuberculosis in an overcrowded prison in Sevastopol, died in a hospital where he was transferred several months after he sent an emergency request to the European court in Strasbourg.
Yakovenko, who was serving three and a half years in prison as a repeat offender burglar, testified before the court via letter that he had shared a 15 square metre (161 square foot) cell with 25 other prisoners.
The prisoners slept in shifts on three full-sized mattresses, their cells were infested with cockroaches and ants, badly ventilated and were lit 24 hours a day.
The Ukrainian government defended the prison conditions, but a report issued by the European Anti-Torture Commission for the Council of Europe confirmed the bad state of prisons in the former Soviet republic, specifically those where Yakovenko was held.
The European court awarded Yakovenko's mother a 10,000 euro (14,300 dollar) judgement after deciding that Ukraine violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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