Tymoshenko says he left Ukraine to escape growing persecution

Oleksander Tymoshenko, husband of the jailed former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was granted political asylum in the Czech Republic last week, said he had left the country to escape growing persecution. In an interview for Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian broadcast Mr. Tymoshenko said he intended to fight the Yanukovich regime from Prague and coordinate the activities of various Ukrainian exile groups. Oleksander Tymoshenko is the second Ukrainian national whom the Czech Republic has granted political asylum in the past 12 months. Last year it granted an asylum request from a former economics minister in the Tymoshenko cabinet. The former prime minister herself was sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of office in what the EU denounced as a politically-motivated trial.