MOSCOW, November 12 (RIA Novosti) – The defense lawyer for former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is being questioned for allegedly assaulting his ex-wife, the press service for Tymoshenko's Fatherland opposition party said Tuesday.
A district court in Kiev ruled to release lawyer Sergei Vlasenko from pretrial custody on about $2,700 bail. He is allowed to leave Kiev only to visit his client in Kharkiv, a city about 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of the capital.
Vlasenko said earlier that he had been summoned for questioning at the Prosecutor General’s Office in Kiev this week for his suspected assault on ex-wife Natalia Okunskaya.
The Fatherland party said Tymoshenko, who was sentenced in 2011 to seven years in prison for abuse of power, believes her close contacts are being unfairly persecuted for their involvement with her.
A Ukrainian court seized a building owned by Tymoshenko’s daughter on October 29.
The former prime minster was convicted over a gas contract with Russia that was deemed financially unfavorable for Ukraine. She has also been accused of organizing the murder of a local politician in 1996. She insists that the charges against her are politically motivated.
Tymoshenko’s imprisonment has become a major roadblock to Ukraine’s signing of an association agreement with the European Union.
