The Investigation Committee is eager to answer the question whether libelling against Aliaksandr Lukashenka was true. For that purpose the criminal investigation of Andrzej Poczobut’s case has been extended for another month.
Poczobut was arrested in June, 2012 and charged with libelling against the president of the Republic of Belarus. Later he was released on his own recognisance. Not a single investigatory action might have been carried out, the investigation itself is going on. At the moment he journalist of the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza is facing up to five years of imprisonment.
It is anybody’s guess why the investigation is proceeding. “The bare fact that the criminal case was initiated is determined mainly by the authorities’ political measures. I have no illusions about some investigatiry actions being taken. I was acquainted with expert testimonies, and experience has shown that they are enough to put a man in jail,” Poczobut makes no doubt.
Andrzej Poczobut has no idea why the authorities suddenly freed him but he is sure that his nine-day detention and a later release are items of someone’s deliberately framed plan. However, he does not think official Minsk to try bargaining for something with Poland.
“In Warsaw it is fully realised that Lukashenka would have much of“commodity” if [political] trafficking in persons started because a lot of Poles live in Belarus,” the journalist believes. He added that Lukashenka has nothing to be sensitive about: “All the articles in which I allegedly abused Lukashenka are on the Internet.That is why the first hearing was in camera: the articles will not be considered libel by 99 % of citizens of Belarus”.
Belsat
