On January 26, the District Court of Warsaw launched a hearing of the extradition case regarding the founder of the NEXTA channels, Stsyapan Putsila. Ten criminal cases were filed against him in Belarus.
Stsyapan Putsila is sure that the consideration of the case is just a formality, as Poland could not have it any other way. He is confident of a favorable court decision, which will also apply to all EU countries. And so it turned out.
The judge spent 10 minutes reading out all the articles that Putsila was accused of by the Belarusian side and asked the defendant whether he agreed to be extradited to Belarus. Putsila disagreed. The prosecutor’s office stated that extradition was inadmissible (Putsila’s lawyer said it was the first time in 40 years that he supported the prosecutor).
As a result, the judge ruled that it was inadmissible to hand Putsila down to the Belarusian regime “just because a psychotic dictator wants this.” This complies with the standards of democratic countries and the Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution of Poland, the judge noted. The appeal can be filed within seven days.
According to information published by the telegram channel NEXTA, senior advisor of Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya Franak Vyachorka, bloggers Anton Matolka, Stsyapan Putsila (author of NEXTA channels), and Raman Pratasevich are accused in the same criminal case initiated by the Investigative Committee of Belarus.
The Belarusian authorities have long been seeking the extradition of Stsyapan Putsila, founder of the popular network of channels NEXTA, which the Belarusian authorities called “extremist.” The Investigative Committee of Belarus has sent documents for their extradition to Poland through the Prosecutor General, said the head of the IC international legal department, Mikhail Vavula, to the newspaper “Belarus Today,” on February 6, 2021.
“We have an international treaty on legal assistance in criminal matters with this country, which also regulates the issue of extradition. Let’s see to what extent this state will fulfill its international obligations to extradite persons prosecuted by the Belarusian Investigative Committee,” Vavula said.
In October 2021, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus put Telegram channels NEXTA, NEXTA-Live, and Luxta on the list of “extremist formations.”
