Marek Bucko: Belarusian secret services have contacts in Poland's law-enforcement agencies

Belarusian and Polish representatives of NGOs call to move hearing of the case against political refugee Andrei Zhukavets from Bialystok to Warsaw.

The Belarusian businessman was given a 3-year prison sentence on accusations of receiving loans of 700,000 dollars in 1999. Polish investigators received necessary documents from Belarus. Andrei Zhukavets claims he is a victim of political persecution, because he used to help Young Front. This fact is confirmed by Pavel Seviarynets, a former leader of the youth organisation.

Participants of the press conference, which was held today in Warsaw,  said the court of Bialystok yielded to influence of the Belarusian side and asked to move hearings of Zhukavets's case to Warsaw, Polskie Radio reports.

“I think the Belarusian secret services have many contacts in law-enforcement agencies in Bialystok. They want to create a precedent of jailing a Belarusian refugee by a Polish court. They need such a precedent, because European court still do not consider Belarusian extradition requests,” Marek Bucko, a former first secretary of the Polish Embassy in Minsk and deputy head of the Polish Freedom and Democracy Foundation, said at the press conference.

Anatoly Mikhnavets from the organisation Belarusian National Memory revealed some facts proving that Zhukavets's case was fabricated. About 600 mistakes were found in the Russian-Belarusian translation of his case files. For example, absence of Zhukavets's signature in documents was translated as “unreadable signature”, Germany as the British Virgin Islands and the surname of his “accomplice” Zhukau as Zhukavets. According to the court ruling, many of the mistakes were made due to fatigue of translators.

Polish human rights defenders raise concerns that the judgement may pave the way for pronouncing other  guilty verdicts to Belarusian opposition activists facing framed charges from official Minsk.

Members of the Polish Sejm Malgorzata Gosiewska, who attended the press conference, promised to raise Zhukavats's question at a meeting of Polish MPs.