Tymoshenko's husband seeks asylum in Prague

PRAGUE - The Associated Press

A file picture taken on October 11, 2011 shows Ukraine's former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko at the Kiev Pechersky court. AFP Photo

A senior Czech official says the husband of jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is seeking political asylum in the Czech Republic.

Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg has confirmed that Tymoshenko's husband Oleksandr has applied for asylum. The minister told Czech public radio Friday it was likely he would get it.
His ministry and the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of granting asylum, declined to immediately comment Friday.

Tymoshenko, Ukraine's top opposition leader and a former presidential candidate, was sentenced to seven years in jail in October in a trial the West has condemned as politically motivated. She has been reportedly been in poor health and denied medical care while locked up in a Kiev prison.