On October 26, Andrei Novikau was taken to the M1 highway to the border with the Russian Federation in the clothes he had on while being arrested on June 6. He was given a passport with a ban on coming to Belarus for 10 years. He sent a message about this to the Hlubokaye telegram channel.
In the Pastavy region, Russian citizen Andrei Novikau has a wife and two children. The youngest daughter is one and a half years old.
Novikau was detained on June 6 when he was driving a tractor near a village in the Pastavy district. After being taken to Minsk to a pre-trial detention center on Valadarski Street, he spent almost six months behind bars.
Novikau was a volunteer in the election campaign of Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, collecting signatures for her nomination. He was charged under the same article as Syarhei Tsikhanouski – part 1 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code (Organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order).
In his message, Novikau complains that he was expelled from Belarus without observing the norms of legislation and law, without legal procedures.
His family remained in Belarus, they still cannot leave: after a difficult birth, his wife needs rehabilitation and observation by a doctor.
Andrey Novikau also reports that his status in the criminal case is currently unclear: “The arrest was canceled without any explanation.”
They took away all the documents that had accumulated during the investigation, all personal correspondence, even postcards, letters of support, and personal notes.
Now Novikau is in Russia. He is going to spread information about his story, as he believes that this is the only thing that will help, because his family in Belarus is “held hostage”.
“It’s impossible to get the truth, the heads of the power structures are shifting responsibility to each other, the lawyers are intimidated,” he says. “It’s the same with the courts.”
Andrei Novikau thanked for the support he felt while in the pre-trial detention center.
Andrei Novikau is a Belarusian, was born in the Belarusian Varapayeva, after school he studied and served in the Russian Ussuriisk. He served in the police, has the rank of retired lieutenant colonel. He twice participated in military operations on the territory of Chechnya.
belsat.eu
