Husband Of Ex-Ukraine PM Tymoshenko Seeks Asylum In Czech Republic
(RTTNews) – The husband of jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has sought asylum in the Czech Republic.
Oleksander Tymoshenko applied for asylum at the end of last year, the news of which was reported by the Czech media on Friday.
Czech Radio reported that Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg confirmed this, quoting the Interior Minister. He said Oleksander Tymoshenko would possibly be granted asylum in the country, which has a soft corner toward Opposition in countries that have patchy human rights records.
Former Ukrainian Energy Minister Bogdan Danilishin, one of Tymoshenko’s allies, who was charged with abuse of office in his country, was granted political asylum in the Czech Republic an year ago.
Oleksander, who was briefly jailed in the early 2000s on corruption charges, is a partner of Czech company International Industrial Projects SRO, based in Usti nad Labem.
Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of power in October. The Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv said she criminally exceeded her powers when she signed natural gas import contracts with Russia in 2009 while she was the country’s Prime Minister. She was also banned from political office for three years.
Tymoshenko, who is the leader of the Batkivschyna All-Ukrainian Association party, said she believed the criminal case against her was to prevent her from running in future elections.
She says she is the victim of a vendetta pursued by President Viktor Yanukovych, who beat her in the Presidential run-off in February 2010. The 51-year-old Opposition leader told the public not to be afraid of Yanukovych’s “regime,” comparing it to the worst of the Stalin era.
She is currently serving the jail term in Kachanivska Penal Colony in Kharkiv.
Yulia Tymoshenko’s case has seriously strained relations between Kyiv and the West.
The European Union has warned that the imprisonment of Yulia Tymoshenko will have profound implications for the EU-Ukraine bilateral relations, and affect Ukraine’s EU Integration.
by RTT Staff Writer
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