You're reading: Another Tymoshenko minister gets asylum in Europe

 Former Acting Defense Minister Valery Ivashchenko was granted political asylum in Denmark, the Danish Foreign Affairs Ministry is quoted as saying.

Ivashchenko,
who served in then-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s government from June 2009
to March 2010, was arrested in August 2010 over his alleged involvement in the
illegal privatization of a shipbuilding plant in the Crimean port of Feodosiya,
which caused an estimated $8.8 million in damages to Ukraine’s budget. 

On
April 12 2012 he was sentenced to 5 years of jail. Ivashchenko denied any
wrongdoing, calling the verdict unjust and politically motivated. The verdict
and long term pre trial detention of Ivashchenko were criticized by the
Helsinki Human rights group, European Union and USA.

In
June 2012 The European Court of Human Rights held
that there had been a violation of Article 3 (inhuman or
degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights, and that
Ukraine had failed to comply with its obligations under Article 34 (right
to individual petition) as regards the authorities’ refusal to provide Ivashchenko with copies of documents for his application to the European
Court of Human Rights.

On Aug. 14, 2012 the Kyiv
court of appeal changed the verdict to the suspended prison sentence.

Kyiv Post staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can be reached at [email protected].

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