Daughter of Ukrainian ex-PM to speak to US Senate

The daughter of Ukraine's jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said that she has been invited to address US senators as she campaigns to secure her mother's release.

"I will deliver a speech" to the Senate's Subcommittee on European Affairs, 31-year-old Yevgeniya Carr, Tymoshenko's only child, told AFP by phone ahead of her visit to Washington.

"Our side will have an opportunity to tell the truth of how political prisoners are treated in Ukraine.

"We will spread as much as possible information about the way the country's authorities deal with their political opponents."

Senators are due to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

Yulia Tymoshenko is serving a seven-year jail sentence after a court convicted her of abuse of power, which she claimed was a political prosecution by her rival Viktor Yanukovych, who is now the president.

Yevgeniya Carr has already visited Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris and Strasbourg in the last month in an attempt to persuade Western governments to a tougher stance on her mother's imprisonment and put pressure on Ukrainian authorities.

"Pressure will only grow and then there will be more hope in her release," said Carr, adding that only Yanukovych can free Tymoshenko and other former officials that have been convicted, by issuing a pardon.

"Yanukovych can act to free mother even tomorrow, but that depends on his will and his desire to resolve this problem, which he himself created," she said.
Jailed in August prior to her October trial, Tymoshenko has claimed that her health has deteriorated. Her case has sent Ukraine's relationship with the European Union to a new low.

Tymoshenko's husband Olexandr Tymoshenko was granted political asylum in the Czech Republic earlier this year.
 

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