KYIV. July 16 (Interfax) - The husband of jailed former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has hired a U.S. law firm to lobby her release and the possibility of his seriously ailing spouse to take treatment in Germany, a Ukrainian news website said on Friday.
Wiley Rein LLP received $80,000 from Oleksandr Tymoshenko, who has been granted asylum in the Czech Republic, for its efforts in the first quarter of this year and was paid $10,000 for what it did in the fourth quarter of 2011, the Ukrayinska Pravda site said.
In a report to the U.S. Justice Department dated June 8, Wiley Rein said it had been urging the U.S. government to support German Chancellor Angela Merkel's request for Tymoshenko to be allowed to go to a clinic in Berlin, Ukrayinska Pravda said.
The Washington-based firm said it had been contacting U.S. government officials and members of Congress and briefing American politicians on developments on the Tymoshenko issue.
It warned it did not want to interfere in Ukrainian politics.
Tymoshenko was convicted in October 2011 of exceeding her powers as prime minister by pulling off a natural gas deal with Russia in 2009 that allegedly ran against Ukraine's interests.
She has been serving her seven-year sentence at a prison in Kharkiv since December.
Her defense said she began to have serious health problems while she was still in pretrial detention in Kyiv. Tymoshenko said she mistrusted Ukraine's state health service and, with support from her lawyers, demanded treatment by independent medics.
On May 9, she was placed in a state hospital in Kharkiv but her treatment there has been overseen by doctors from Berlin's Charite clinic.