Up to 5 years in jail: 10 defendants in so called Brest partisans’ case get harsh sentences
On May 18, Leninski district court of Brest passed guilty verdicts on ten local residents.
According to the prosecution’s version, the defendants were involved in hanging out effigies in different parts of Brest; throwing eggs and stones at a police station; setting car tires on fire in a deserted street at night; covering a small tobacco shop with paintings; blocking rails with help of metal wire. They were charged with ‘malicious hooliganism’ (Part 2 of Article 339 of the Criminal Code), ‘especially malicious hooliganism’ (Part 3 of Article 339), ‘intentional disabling a vehicle or means of communication’ (Part 1 of Article 309).
Today judge Alyaksandr Semyanchuk has taken heed of the prosecutor’s demands and imposed the following sentences:
- Yauhen Kambul got 5 years of imprisonment in a minimum security penal colony;
- Syarhei Silich – 4 years in a minimum security penal colony;
- Maksim Silyuk – 2.5 years in a minimum security penal colony;
- Maksim Pytsel – 3 years in a minimum security penal colony;
- Volha Syravatka, Syarhei Krasouski – 2 years in a minimum security penal colony each;
- Natallya Barynava, Natallya Muratova – 1 year in a minimum security penal colony each;
- Uladzimir Katsyubka – 1.5 years in a minimum security penal colony;
- Maryna Silyanok – 1.5 years of restriction of liberty.
Maksim Silyuk and his life partner Liliya Bayarina have a toddler daughter. The girl might see her father only in 2.5 years.
“It is pure cynicism: the prosecutor demanded 2.5 years – and the judge gave such term, nothing has changed, everything was word-for-word. I think it is unfair. Maksim is not guilty of anything at all, he was a witness, his ‘contribution’ was giving other people a lift. They [defendants] just wanted to protest their homeland, but now they have faced shocking sentences,” Liliya told Belsat.
