Alyaksei Shchadrou, a former medic who opened a homeless shelter near Shchuchyn, was interrogated and beaten all night by police. He admitted to a crime for the beating to stop.
On January 31, Alyaksei, also known as brother Luigi, went to the hospital in the Shchuchin District to have his tooth pulled. After he returned home, he had a visit from the police.
“I was accused of having allegedly taken a wallet from the third floor of the hospital’s surgery ward. The police saw on the CCTV cameras that I, a convict in the cast, was at the time in the hospital — and they arrested me,” Alyaksei told Belsat.
Alyaksei spent the next day at the police station, where he was beaten, interrogated and beaten again.
“Two senior lieutenants said that they would pierce my ears and began to click a stapler around my head. Another policman asked how many baton blows I could take and began to hit me on the shoulders and hands,” Shchadrou said.
The police warned the man that if he did not confess, they would beat him all night.
“I did not sleep all night. And all night they beat me on the head and shoulders. To stop them, I said that I did steal the wallet, but threw it away. When we went to the place where I had allegedly thrown it away, the wallet was not there. Then we went to another place — it was not there either. When the operatives arrived in the morning, began to investigate and watched all the surveillance cameras footage, they realized that something was amiss,” he continues.
After the investigators saw on the CCTV footage that Shchadrou never went to the floor where the wallet was missing, he was released. He returned home on Friday night.
Belsat was not able to get a commentary from the local police.
Residents of the shelter are calling Shchadrou a good person always ready to help people out.
State vs Shchadrou
Alyaksei Shchadrou is 33 years old. In his youth, he worked as an ambulance medical assistant. Having access to drugs, he began to sell drugs that are sold in pharmacies by prescription.
For the drug trade, he served three years in prison.
“I paid for all my crimes,” says Shchadrou.
Seven years ago, after his release, Alyaksei bought a house in the village of Alyaksandrauka, in the Shchuchyn District, where he organized a shelter to take care of homeless people, helping them to recover documents and return to a normal lifestyle.
Alyaksei gets help from almost no one, the shelter has no official registration — and the authorities do not particularly like it. Local officials have repeatedly forced Shchadrou to close the shelter. In 2017, KGB officers searched the premises.
In 2017 Alyaksei was listed as a social parasite.
Individuals and members of the Belarusian Christian Democracy Party help the shelter with money.
In 2015, at the “Listapad” film festival, the film “Guests” about Alyaksei Shchadrou was recognized as the best documentary.
belsat.eu
