The husband of jailed Ukrainian opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko accused President Viktor Yanukovich on Thursday of destroying justice in the former Soviet republic after Yanukovich linked his foe to a 16-year-old murder case.
Using extremely strong language, Olexander Tymoshenko also accused Yanukovich of spying “like a maniac and pervert” on his wife in a hospital where she is under prison guard.
Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison last October on abuse-of-office charges. The European Union saw her case as an example of selective justice and has shelved an association agreement with Kiev over the issue.
In an accusation which caused further outrage in the West and prompted a number of European politicians to boycott the Euro 2012 soccer championship being co-hosted by Ukraine, Tymoshenko in April said prison guards had beat her, a charge the authorities deny.
But Yanukovich has refused to intervene in her case and Ukrainian prosecutors have piled more charges on Tymoshenko, accusing her of tax evasion and, most recently, saying she could be involved in a 1996 contract killing.
This week, Yanukovich told reporters Tymoshenko was linked to the murder of businessman and politician Yevhen Shcherban, although he later said it was up to the court to establish that.
Tymoshenko’s husband, who fled Ukraineand was granted political asylum in the Czech Republic, accused Yanukovich of taking over the judiciary in order to carry out a personal vendetta.
“(Your) order to prosecute Yulia Tymoshenko is no longer a secret. It has been made public now,” Olexander Tymoshenko said in an open letter to Yanukovich.
“This is a new step in the evolution of dictatorship … You, Yanukovich, and your followers have delivered the verdict to the leader of unified opposition.”
Tymoshenko, 51, is being treated for back trouble in a state-run hospital in the city of Kharkiv, one of the soccer championship venues, and a German doctor treating her has complained about constant surveillance.
“Every day, like a maniac and a pervert, you watch through cameras set up by your order in my wife’s hospital ward what this small but strong-spirited woman is doing,” Olexander said.
Tymoshenko has dismissed murder allegations as absurd and is appealing against her initial conviction and sentence. The appeal hearings are due to resume on June 26, a day after another court restarts hearings into her tax evasion case.
Tymoshenko, a fiery speaker and successful businesswoman, helped lead the 2004 Orange Revolution which derailed Yanukovich’s first bid for the presidency. She has since served twice as prime minister.
But after she lost the 2010 presidential election to Yanukovich, Tymoshenko and a number of her allies in opposition faced corruption-related charges in what she has described as a campaign of repression.
