Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's daughter, Yevhenia, has said that her father, Oleksandr Tymoshenko, applied to the Czech government for political asylum "out of necessity".
"My father did not want to leave. Even now he is greatly worried about it. But I think that it was a necessary measure, given the situation our family found itself in," Yevhenia Tymoshenko told the TVi television station, according to Yulia Tymoshenko’s Web site.
Yevhenia said that it would have been much more difficult for her family if the authorities had continued prosecuting Oleksandr Tymoshenko.
"If the authorities had continued their reprisals against him, it would have effected my mother even stronger than in this situation now that she has already been sent to a penal colony," she said.
Oleksandr Tymoshenko was granted political asylum in the Czech Republic on Jan.6, 2012.
