Harsh sentence imposed on former official Uladzimir Dudarau who joined team of Lukashenka’s election rival
Uladzimir Dudarau, a political prisoner and former Belarusian official, has faced a stiff prison sentence, human rights centre Viasna reports.
In 2018, Uladzimir Dudarau was appointed Deputy Chairman of Mahiliou city executive committee; he was in charge of construction as well as housing and utilities sector. The man left his post in October, 2019. Notably, Dudarau became a coordinator of presidential wannabe Viktar Babaryka’s initiative group in Mahiliou region in the spring of 2020. In mid June, he was detained; a few days later, the authorities arrested Babaryka and his son Eduard.
According to the authorities’ version, the former official converted part of the technical floor in a building on Lepeshynski Street in which he resided with his family, into a living area. The prosecution also claims that Uladzimir Dudarau, while working as chairman of the housing and communal services from 2006 to 2009, on behalf of representatives of the housing cooperative and without their knowledge initiated changes to the design documentation to increase the height of ceilings on the technical floor from 1.9 to 2.5 m, which allegedly led to construction expenditures’ growing by 2,288 rubles and the cooperative’s covering the extra costs. In addition, Dudarau was charged with unauthorised connection to gas, heat, and electricity.
However, the seized minutes of the cooperative’s meetings has no evidence that the decision to increase the height of the technical floor’s ceilings was brought up for discussion. There is also no confirmation that members of the cooperative received unreasonably big privileged loans due to changes in the project. Moreover, no facts of unauthorised connection of the technical floor to the mains were discovered during the inspections.
Alena Karalko, Chairperson of Chausy district court, found Uladzimir Dudarau guilty under part 3 of Art. 426 of the Criminal Code (‘abuse of office’) and Part 4 of Art. 209 (‘fraud’) and sentenced him to 7.5 years of imprisonment in a medium-security penal colony.
The defendant pleaded not guilty. It is not ruled out that such a severe punishment is nothing but the regime’s retaliation for the former public servant’s joining the election team of Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s strong opponent.
