KIEV, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- A Ukrainian court in the eastern city of Kharkiv adjourned the tax evasion and embezzlement trial of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko for the 11th time Friday after she refused to attend court due to poor health.

Judge Kostyantin Sadovsky adjourned the trial until Dec. 18.

Tymoshenko refused to attend the trial due to back pains for which she was receiving treatment at an out-of-prison health center.

The former prime minister, who has been jailed since August 2011 in a separate case, has been diagnosed with a spinal disc herniation. She was jailed for seven years in October last year for abusing power in a natural gas deal with Russia in 2009

In the current case, she faces charges of embezzling an estimated 405 million U.S. dollars and evading tax worth more than 87,000 U.S. dollars in the 1990s.