As Tymoshenko's husband goes into exile in Czech Republic.
Ukraine has entered a new year, but the epic case of imprisoned opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko unfolds with no end in sight – haunting the nation as well as sabotaging its prospects of closer integration with the European Union.
Days after EU officials expressed shock that the former prime minister was transferred from a Kyiv detention center to a prison in Kharkiv just before the New Year, opposition lawmakers accused President Viktor Yanukovych on Jan. 10 of trying to “kill” their leader. The administration’s chief of staff, Serhiy Lyovochkin, denied the charges. “Of course, this is not true,” Lyovochkin told reporters.
Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party said that she lost consciousness late on Jan. 6 after taking medication provided by “Gestapo” doctors at the Kachanivska penal colony. “They came to her not to treat her, but to fulfill the next cynical order by the government and to report about the stable state of health of Tymoshenko whom President Yanukovych is trying to kill behind the barbed wire,” the party said in a Jan. 10 statement.
Prison authorities also denied such accusations and insisted that Tymoshenko’s health is strong enough to be questioned by prosecutors in connection with other criminal investigations against her.
The regime in Ukraine has not shied away from using dirty methods. They began to persecute me and other members of Tymoshenko’s family.
– Oleksandr Tymoshenko
Tymoshenko’s fate and broader concerns over Ukraine’s democratic regression have strained relations with the EU, which have made closer relations contingent on her freedom and participation in the Oct. 28 parliamentary elections. The U.S. is also pressing for her release.
Lyovochkin, however, cited the findings of Ukrainian courts which found Tymoshenko guilty of abusing her power as prime minister in brokering the 2009 natural gas supply contract with Russia.
The presidential chief of staff said Ukraine was paying a hefty price for Tymoshenko’s mistakes.
Also, on Jan. 6, the Czech Republic confirmed it had granted asylum to Tymoshenko’s husband, Oleksandr. Just one year earlier, Prague granted asylum to Tymoshenko’s former economic minister Bohdan Danylyshyn. At least one other Tymoshenko ally has also applied for asylum abroad.
“The regime in Ukraine has not shied away from using dirty methods. They were not able to break Yulia Tymoshenko either through intimidation, the courts, imprisonment or torture. So they resorted to even uglier means. They began to persecute me and other members of her family,” the exiled Oleksandr Tymoshenko said in a statement.
“I do not want to provide Yanukovych with any additional leverage against the opposition and for me political asylum is the only way to achieve this goal.
The 51-year-old businessman has never been involved in politics. He has an interest in a Czech trading firm called International Industrial Projects.
Back in the 1990s, however, Oleksandr Tymoshenko was one of the managers of United Energy Systems of Ukraine, a trading company that was selling Russian gas to Ukrainian consumers for a steep markup.
Last year Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) launched a criminal investigation into the company’s activities, accusing it of the attempted misuse of $405 million in state budget funds.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said “Oleksandr Tymoshenko is not under investigation and owes nothing to the Ukrainian state,” spokesman Oleh Voloshyn told Tyzhden news website.
Tymoshenko’s lawyers now hang their hopes on a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights exhausting Ukrainian appeals to her conviction and seven-year prison sentence as the debate over her health and who will treat her medically deepens.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected].
