Supervision over ex-political prisoner Mikalai Autukhovich extended for 6 months


A term of supervision over former political prisoner Mikalai Autukhovich was extended for 6 months. On August 6, Vaukavysk District Court reconsidered the case on the extension of preventive supervision over Autukhovich without his participation, HRC Viasna reports

In mid July Vaukavysk District Court failed to uphold local police department’s motion for extension of supervision over the former political prisoner. But suddenly the acting prosecutor pdeclared a rivate protest of against the refusal. The protest was to have been considered on August 6, but then the date of the hearing was advanced to August, 5.

On August 5, the board of Hrodna Regional Court cancelled the decision by Vaukavysk District Court on the termination of the term of supervision over former political prisoner Mikalai Autukhovich. The case was recommitted to the district court. The decision affected Autukhovich: Mikalai was taken to hospital, and the trial was held in absentia.

Read also: Mikola Autukhovich has hypertensive crisis

Lawyer Pavel Sapelka believes that the establishment of preventive supervision to those who have fully served their sentences does not correspond to the principles enshrined in the general part of the Criminal Code. Preventive supervision, providing significant restrictions on the rights, is assigned to persons in respect of whom the criminal liability has been fully used, he says.

“With regard to political prisoners, preventive supervision is used by the authorities in all its glory, some of the released prisoners have been convicted for violating its rules: some others left the capital for fear of unlawful conviction,” spring96.org quotes Pavel Sapelka as saying.

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In 1981 Mikalai Autukhovich started serving in the army in Russia. After finishing a school of warrant officers he volunteered to serve in Afghanistan. He was awarded with an order and two medals for guarding the bridge nearKandahar and participation in other military operations. In 1991 he left the army and started running his own business in the town of Vaukavysk, Hrodna region.

When his business (taxi service) started boosting Vaukavysk officials dropped some strong hints that under-the-table payments were expected from Mr Autuhovich. But instead of bribing officials, the businessman began to collect information on the town’s web corruption. There is every likelihood that the head of Hrodna State Security Department (KGB) got into the act as well; it is Mr Autukhovich’s anti-corruption activity that was the main reason of putting him behind bars. Prison turned out to be a way of neutralizing the man of principle.

On February 8, 2009 Mr Autukhovich was arrested again; in May, 2010 the Supreme Court of Belarus sentenced the former entrepreneur to five years and two months of imprisonment in a medium security penal colony under the Criminal Code’s Article 295, which penalizes the illegal handling of arms, ammunition and explosives, because offive hunting rifle cartridges found in his safe. Human rights defenders note that the sentence might well have been awarded in retaliation for Mikalai Autukhovich’s fighting against public corruption in the region.

See also: Delusive Belarus: Political Prisoners in Land of Stability (Belsat TV video)

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