Widow of Minsker Andrey Zeltsar sent back to jail after spending three weeks in mental hospital
Maryia Uspenskaya, the widow of the man involved in the widely reported shootout in Minsk, spent three weeks in the Republican Scientific and Practical Centre for Mental Health area in Minsk, the newspaper Nasha Niva reports with reference to the woman’s mother.
In late October, the Belarusian authorities sent Maryia there so that the woman could undergo a forensic psychiatric examination.
“The results of this examination are unknown. My daughter spent three weeks in the hospital, then she was taken back to the pre-trial detention centre,” the mother says.
The prison authorities started to accept parcels for Maryia, but they seem to prevent her from holding correspondence – since she was placed behind bars, Maryia’s mother has not received a single letter from her.
Earlier, the employees of the pre-trial detention centre on Valadarski Street and the ‘Akrestsin’ detention facility had repeatedly refused to accept warm clothes, food, hygiene items for Maryia. Andrey Zeltsar’s widow was tortured by the cold in prison, human rights activists stressed.
“Maryia Uspenskaya’s outerwear was taken away, and the heating was turned off in the cell where she was held in ‘Akrestsin’ jail. Given the cold weather, this is nothing short of torture and inhumane treatment,” human rights defender Andrey Stryzhak said in October.
Maryia Uspenskaya was detained by KGB officers during the storming of their apartment in late September. According to the Investigative Committee, the woman was criminally charged for complicity in the murder of security officer Dzmitry Fedasyuk.
In accordance with the authorities’ version, Belarusian security officers were conducting a ‘special inspection of the apartments in which people involved in terrorist activities could have been’ on September 28; in the course of the KGB raid, two persons were killed on Yakubouski Street in Minsk – KGB officer Dzmitry Fedasyuk and EPAM employee Andrey Zeltsar. The latter resided in the flat to which plainclothed people broke into on that day. If the Investigative Committee’s statement is anything to go by, Zeltsar fired a shotgun at the visitors and wounded one of them; later, the injured died of wounds in hospital. The owner of the apartment was killed as well; his 40-year-old wife Maryia Uspenskaya was arrested on suspicion of complicity in the murder of a KGB officer.
The Belarusian special services have been using the tragedy on Yakubouski Street as a pretext for stepping up reprisals: over 200 people have been taken into custody over online duscussing the tragic deaths of the IT specialist and the KGB officer. According to the Belarusian Investigative Committee, these people are defendants in criminal cases initiated under Article 130 (‘inciting to hatred’) and 369 (‘insulting a representative of authorities’) of the Criminal Code. The reason for their being persecuted were comments and videos which were notable for their unabashed cynicism’, the investigators said.
It would be good if the authorities could kill up to 100 persons (i.e. protesters or dissidents) in retaliation for one dead KGB officer, pro-Lukashenka top brass officer Aleh Belakoneu said when attending the farewell ceremony for Fedasyuk.
belsat.eu
