Alyaksandr Kruty: “I’m waiting to be convoyed to Navinki for compulsory treatment against conscience”

A dweller of Minsk, Alyaksandr Kruty, for whom the court decided to use compulsory treatment measures, has sent a letter to Homel-based activist Kanstantsin Zhukouski.

Alyaksandr Kruty writes that at the moment, since November 29, he is kept in the remand prison in Valadarski Street, and he “is expecting for a prison transport there to be convoyed to Navinki mental hospital for a compulsory treatment against conscience”. “It would be strange for the forensic psychiatric examination experts to fail in finding the key Belarusian diagnosis in my case,” the prisoner says. He writes that he is kept in the cell Nr 29 “for persons freed from criminal responsibility.” “The fact that such cells exist in Belarusian prisons, is an example of a classic oxymoron, and should be studied carefully. I was not allowed to be present in the court when my case was tried. The time from the moment of detention and my arrival to the mental hospital is not included in the term of punishment. In such cells person may be expecting a transfer to Haytsyunishki (a hospital for mentally ill persons who had committed a crime) for up to 1.5 years,” Kruty writes in the letter.

The decision to place Alyaksandr Kruty in such an in-patient hospital was adopted by the court in December 2011. The daughter of the prisoner, Inessa Krutaya, does not agree with the ruling of the court, and believes that her father was punished for defending his opinion.

The daughter believes that persecution of her father is related with the case of terrorist attack in Minsk metro. She was a victim in the case, and her father defended her interests. During the trial Alyaksandr asked “hard questions” to the court, and offered to abolish capital punishment. Inessa Krutaya believes that her father was imprisoned in order to prevent his participation in the trial.