According to Radio Liberty, the lawyer of Syarhei Tsikhanouski found out that the Savetski District Court of Homiel had passed a decision in the civil case of the political prisoner against the tax inspection. Syarhei will still have to pay tax, almost 258 thousand rubles, in the amount of $ 900 thousand, allegedly found behind his couch during the search on June 3-4, 2020.
“The decision is not in our favor. We will wait for the reasoning and will appeal,” Tsikhanouski’s lawyer Natallia Matskevich said to Radio Liberty.
The trial was held behind closed doors at the request of the tax inspection. The reason was that “forces, means, methods and ways of work of the tax inspection are a secret protected by law. In addition, the case contains information about the property status of Syarhei Tsikhanouski, which is a tax secret.”
Tsikhanouski, when he filed a claim for a tax refund, claimed that the 900 thousand was not his; he knew nothing about their origin.
Tsikhanouski was detained on May 29, 2020, in Hrodna at a picket to collect signatures for his wife Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya as a presidential candidate.
The blogger is accused of organizing mass riots, dissemination by a group of persons by prior collusion of materials aimed at inciting social hatred against representatives of the authorities and the law enforcement, threats to the chair of the Central Commission on Elections and National Referenda Lidziya Yarmoshyna, organization of group actions that violate the public order and involve violence against representatives of the authorities.
Syarhei Tsikhanouski is now in pre-trial detention in Homiel. His trial is to begin soon. Mikalai Statkevich, Ihar Losik, Artsyom Sokau, Dzmitry Papou, and Uladzimir Tsyhanovich will be tried together with Tsikhanouski. There are rumors that the trial will be held behind closed doors right in the detention center, but the relatives of political prisoners have no official confirmation.
