Azernews.Az

The husband of Ukraine's jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been granted political asylum in the Czech Republic, amid concerns by her supporters that family members may be targeted in a mounting pressure campaign, Radio Liberty reported.

Czech Interior Minister Jan Kubice told reporters on January 6 that the ministry had approved Oleksandr Tymoshenko's application for asylum. Tymoshenko, 51, is currently in the Czech Republic and applied for asylum last year.

"Mr. Tymoshenko filed a request for political asylum with the Interior Ministry several months ago," Kubice said. "A standard procedure was followed, and the result is that [the asylum] was granted today."

The decision comes as Yulia Tymoshenko, the two-time prime minister of Ukraine and the figurehead of its 2004 Orange Revolution, is in the early months of a seven-year sentence for abuse of office.

Yulia Tymoshenko, a bitter enemy of President Viktor Yanukovych, was convicted in October 2011 and recently transferred to a penal colony in the eastern city of Kharkiv.

Ratcheting up pressure
Supporters say the charges were politically motivated and accuse prison officials of subjecting the former prime minister to ill treatment. They also claim Ukrainian authorities have sought to intimidate the former premier by ratcheting up pressure against friends and family members.

"Yanukovych has taken a dirty path, seeking to break Yulia Tymoshenko through pressure on members of her family," her Batkivschyna (Fatherland) party said in a statement. "The decision to seek political asylum is prompted by the desire to deprive the regime of additional leverage against the leader of the Fatherland party."

This is the second recent case in which the Czech Republic, seen as a staunch defender of human rights in its former Soviet-bloc neighbors, has granted asylum to a high-profile Ukrainian citizen.

Czech authorities last year granted asylum to Bohdan Danylyshyn, who served as Ukraine's economy minister in Tymoshenko's cabinet in 2007-10. The move led to a chill in ties between Prague and Kyiv and prompted a flurry of diplomatic expulsions by both sides.